It's called level of detail. The level of detail of an object or surface decreases or increases depending on your distance (but can be affected by other factors too, such as player/object speed).
Clearly, with the last-gen versions of this game, it's pretty noticeable. I imagine the current-gen and PC versions will have increased LOD at distance though, due to the increase of power.
The best way to think of it is imagining the player has a circle around them at all times, and everything in that circle has the correct level of detail (trees, surfaces, objects, NPC's etc). Everything outside of that circle looks like crap, lol, until it enters the circle. Some games have bigger circles than others, lol. This game clearly has a pretty small circle on last gen consoles.
Sorry to be a party pooper, but if watch-dogs is using circles it is dreadfully innefficient. No need to render stuff behind the camera with any level of detail :)
What? No, nobody invited me. I just turned up. OK fine, I'm going.
LOD is the ancient enemy of game makers. In programming what you get is what you code in. Which means having a city to display, this has to be somewhat prepared. Cities are big, and for buildings farther away, which are lets say half as visible, there's no benefit in displaying full amount of pixels on texture, and all those meticulously crafted concrete details, quite the contrary hardware needs to use some time and space in order to present the object to us.
Here enters LOD. Objects are prepared in different levels of detail(duh) and if let's say quarter density is enough, low Q object is thrown into a buffer. If we're close and personal, higher Q is shown.
Some people are dreaming about dynamic LOD.
With the on-screen variety(trees seem to be generated, hence the low Q vertexes), this still looks great for the console generation it's running on.
@pedrof93 yeah because over the past 8 months graphics in video games is the only thing that matters apparently. Hopefully we can return to a time where this is not news worthy.
I compared WD on 360 to GTA V on 360, and in my opinion WD is a little less balanced graphically. WD seems to have similar detail in closer proximity (some aspects look quite nice), but further in the distance it does look like PS2 visuals.
Draw distance is a different thing entirely. Draw distance is the distance at which an object/structure appears or is rendered. LOD is the distance in which that object/structure receives detail.
For instance, you could have a mountain being rendered in the background (draw distance, but the mountain won't receive detail until you get within a certain distance to it (LOD).
How embarrassing coming from a top developer on last gen consoles, not to mention the always online requirements. Will not buy and nobody should. Vote with your wallets
Thats a great way to explain it. I'll have to remember that explanation - I remember a couple of years ago when I was scripting for a SAMP server trying to explain LOD and Draw Distance to someone. I'm pretty aweful at explaining myself!
FOV is obviously lowered to keep a high texture detail and a steady framerate. Its the oldest trick in the book and with 512mb RAM its not surprising it was used.
Gta wasn't having most of manpower focused on the 2 extra systems we have now. The 2 versions that are most highly anticipated, with the most repercussions if they fail. So less manpower for the last gen.
This is to be expected from last gen consoles, there is only so much they can do, most games from last gen (especially open world games) suffered from this lod problem.
gta5 hand no problems lol, it comes down to who was working on the game. rockstar is the best open world game makers period.. gta5 circle was big lol, can you see that hell yes. #teamtalent..
Also, there's only so much you can do with 512mb without having to cut some corners. The PS3 version will probably be the same as well.. won't stop me from enjoying the game though.
They don't have a ps4, xbox 1 or pc that can run it. there is a total of 160 million last gen cosoles vs. 16-17 million next gen. and who knows how many pcs. So there will be people who haven't upgraded.
Seriously? Why did we get an article of this? The graphics look great for last gen consoles. Sure, PC and the next gen consoles look better, but every open world game suffers from this to some point. Possibly not on PC with the capable hardware though...
That's called optimization, if the tree would look the same from every distance the xbox 360 and ps3 would rund the game with 1 frame per second... Stop bitching about stuff that just doesn't matter...
I think this is to be expected with RAM and processing restrictions last gen consoles have. The details obviously look better when close up though, or at least i hope they do!
Thought as much don't think whilst playing the game you'll be too worried about whats in the distance anyway. Besides this is being bought for the PS4 for me.
And this is why the sooner studios drop last gen the sooner we can move on. They are still pushing hardware that's almost 10 years old. Now I see how PC gamers felt. I'll be getting it on my PS4 and even tho its the superior console version it still doesn't look too great.
First off, it's higher res than any PS2 tree ever, and more importantly, 360 is incredibly old. Quit complaining and get a PC, PS4, or xone, if you want better graphics. It's looks decent compared to other 360 open world games.
This game looks so damn boring to me I really don't see the excitement in this title. It looks like GTA/ AC had a love child. The game for me shows no promise. More of the same open world nonsense in which you run around aimlessly until you decide to find an uninteresting objective with predictable AI. Who cares if the map is the size of the U.S. What good does it do if your limited to certain places. It seems no one gets that the sandbox world is boring when comes to games like GTA an open map with linear chapters
I don't play games for their resolutions or draw distance..
Off topic...
I love the freedom of speech, but these writers should have or if not at least try to display some moral gaming standards. I guess writing about pointless things is a trend nowadays. Someone took their time to record and upload this and of course it was approved on N4G. Xbox articles mostly negative towards console and Company, Wii articles mostly negative towards the company. PS articles mostly bipolar there are more spec articles than actual gaming articles.
They released Titanfall and Watchdogs on Xbox 360. You're surprised it doesn't look as great as the other versions? Considering the Xbox 360 is almost 9 years old. They look pretty good to me.
I have the game on 360 and I would say it looks pretty good for a last gen game. Not as good as gta v but I think that's due to colors used gta was brighter but the game looks pretty good. I'm playing without saying gosh this looks horrible so I know it must be good. Unlike playing 2k14 on ps4 then back on 360 I'm like ew it looks disgusting to me now lol.
It's called level of detail. The level of detail of an object or surface decreases or increases depending on your distance (but can be affected by other factors too, such as player/object speed).
Clearly, with the last-gen versions of this game, it's pretty noticeable. I imagine the current-gen and PC versions will have increased LOD at distance though, due to the increase of power.
The best way to think of it is imagining the player has a circle around them at all times, and everything in that circle has the correct level of detail (trees, surfaces, objects, NPC's etc). Everything outside of that circle looks like crap, lol, until it enters the circle. Some games have bigger circles than others, lol. This game clearly has a pretty small circle on last gen consoles.
Circles are fun.
This is to be expected from last gen consoles, there is only so much they can do, most games from last gen (especially open world games) suffered from this lod problem.
360's been around for 9 years this november, gotta cut it in some slack. Poor old girl ain't what she used to be.
Good to see they're not giving it the best on last gen consoles to make everyone happy, saying that its a big let down for current old gen owners.
That's LOD (Level Of Details) just like 99% of the last gen games !