This morning, like many of you I'm sure, I watched Sony's keynote address at its Playstation Experience in Las Vegas. With each new demo I became more and more underwhelmed with the quality of the graphics in the games on display. Then it occurred to me that maybe the problem wasn't the games but the video compression being used for the stream. But video compression couldn't turn an incredible looking game into an average looking one could it? Well when the compressed version is just a fraction of the size of the full fat version then, as it turns out, it really can. So this afternoon I took the time to download the full uncompressed video which you can get here. You'll notice the only option is to torrent the file. That's because it totals more than 1.5 GB of data, far more than the average computer throughout the world can stream in real time and big enough to eat up the bandwidth allotment of all but the largest websites. But if you download the video (which I would highly recommend), the experience you'll get is revelatory. Really the difference in graphics this generation is going to come down to the ability to render fine details more realistically. And those details are completely lost when streaming a highly compressed version of any video. When it comes to the perfectionists at Naughty Dog losing all of that detail is the difference between a "meh" reveal and a stunning one.

Here are a couple things I noticed when watching the uncompressed video for those who can't download it for whatever reason or just need more incentive:

- About 2/3 of the way through the demo Nate smashes an enemy's head through a small waterfall. In the compressed version this doesn't look especially impressive but in the uncompressed version what occurs is something I have literally never seen before in a game. As Nathan's head passes under the water his hair becomes wet. And I don't mean like in the previous generation where a wet texture is placed over Nathan's body. I mean that the actual physics of his hair changes and then slowly changes back as his hair dries in the sun over the remainder of the demo. Note that his hair blows accurately in the wind up until that point in a way that looks far more realistic than Lara's hair in Tomb Raider. That's a tiny detail but its the type of tiny detail that make's Naughty Dog's games so impressive and it's something you simply can't see on the compressed video.

- Along the lines of small facial details, in last gen Uncharted games Nathan's emotions would show on his face during gameplay and his lips would move while he talked but both of these things weren't done in very high detail. In a sequence a bit later than the one I just mentioned Nate smashes another enemy's head into a wall. That's fine and all but what is really cool is watching Nate's face as the enemy approaches him. Note how Nate's eyes follow what he (or you as the player) are looking at and how his face changes expressions as the enemy moves closer and when he eventually takes him out. It's another tiny detail that is unnoticeable when all the detail is lost in compression.

- I saw several people on the web saying the textures on both the character and the environment had seen a downgrade since the E3 reveal. They haven't. The textures are basically photorealistic but they are heavily blurred on any streaming version of this video no matter how high a quality they claim the video is.

- Small lighting details were also lost with compression. Towards the end of the demo when Nate uses the rope to flee his enemies take a look at the leaves at his feet. You'll notice how each individual leaf on every single plant is correctly receiving the sunlight. In previous generations foliage often didn't receive light or cast shadows at all, and even in the super impressive The Vanishing of Ethan Carter many elements of the foliage were just fancy alpha effects with a lot of crazy blending. But these leaves are full 3D models and the way the light bounces off of the leaves is just stunningly realistic. Think about how when the sun hits a leaf the leaf almost shimmers as the individual crevices in the leaf reflect and refract the light in subtly different ways. When your leaves are just a moving 2D image it can't have crevices and therefore the light cannot accurately bounce off the leaves as it would in real life. But in this demo the light does in fact correctly bounce off each individual leaf, showing that not only are the leaves 3D objects, but are either tessellated or textured in a way that allows the light to take into account depth based on texture opacity or something to that effect. It's another tiny detail but it makes the jungle look borderline photorealistic at times.

- In the last generation games, Nate's shirt would become dirty over time but this was basically a texture swap. It didn't actually change the physical makeup of the shirt and because it was a texture the dirt appeared in preset locations. After Nate slides down a hill of mud late in the demo you can see that his shirt has actual mud on it. Not a texture swap where it now has a brown texture. No this was actual mud that was attached onto his shirt, not part of the shirt itself, and that mud changed how the light reflected off of Nate, proving that Naughty Dog is using an incredibly advanced physically based lighting system more impressive than anything I have seen thus far this generation.

- There were a ton of other minor incidental details you missed in the low quality video. At the very end of the video as the rocks are sliding, Nate grabs onto the top of the cliff and as his hands scrape along the ground trying to get a good grasp, individual pebbles are pulled out of the ground that have fully modeled physics that correctly react to Nate's hands. There are a ton of tiny little things like that which show just how far reaching Naughty Dog's attention to detail goes and how much of a disservice streaming video does to this game.

While full quality videos aren't going to enhance every single current gen game they really are going to be required to appreciate the detail in more and more games. If you really think about it, it's as if you are watching a DVD quality video of a blu-ray quality game. Just like a DVD won't give you all the detail captured by the latest professional cameras, these streaming videos aren't going to give you all the quality allowed by the latest game consoles and PC's. So if you hear your friends bashing the quality of the graphics in a game they have only seen a video of, make sure to ask them if they watched the full quality version or the streamed version. And if you are trying to compare graphics between different versions of a game using a streaming video just stop. Digital Foundry has full quality, uncompressed captures of all the games it examines available for download. If you don't have the bandwidth to download these videos, at the very least hold your judgement as, more and more, judging a game based on compressed videos is doing them a major disservice.

Oh this sounds cool, I'm downloading it now thanks for the link!

Didn't even know an uncompressed version existed. Nice write up and thanks for the link!

@myketuna: Uncompressed versions exist of most game trailers and gameplay demos. The site I link offers uncompressed versions of any trailers they can get their hands on and they also take uncompressed footage of released games if you want to see a game you are thinking of buying how it will look running on your console or PC. The stuff they capture is of truly insane quality to the extent that you actually need a dedicated graphics card to run the video but the footage looks identical to what the gameplay looks like on their screen.

The video is encoded using h.264 which is a lossy format so I don't see how that would make it "uncompressed" but I do get the point: they are of a higher quality than most of the video that other sites are streaming. So they are still compressed, but with a higher bitrate and with a higher profile so that there aren't nearly as many compression artifacts.

Yup, that looks super purdy.

Wow, yeah. That looks a lot better.

Still, Naughty Dog already proved that it could make pretty games. Interesting gameplay and a well told story are what I'd like most from a new Uncharted

Downloading now. This is going to take forever with my slow connection but I really want to see this.

Yeah, I was laughing hard at all the people who were chomping at the bit to come in and say, "Not impressed! I'm not blown away!" The fact people need every new release to "blow them away" with some magical and unreal benchmark cracks me up. There's plenty to be wowed about in this game, they just aren' blowing up in your face.

@spazmaster666: Sorry. To clarify I mean they don't compress it further than what they get. This 1.6 GB video is what Sony sent to media outlets and most then compress that video into a variety of resolutions and container types. So they are compressing an already compressed video which, when it comes to lossy formats is the type of thing that quickly degrades quality. So yes, it is lightly compressed in its original form but at 1.5 GB we are talking very, very minimal compression to the point that it isn't noticeable by the naked eye.

@aegon: I was glad to see them taking cues from The Last of Us with the AI that lost Nathan when he hid and that jumped between ledges and such. And the larger level seemed to let you get through the encounter in several different ways. If all the encounters are like that I would say they fixed my main problem with the previous games - the fact that the combat was boring if it didn't take place in some set piece area.

@sammo21: Well in their defense Naughty Dog usually shows one of their big set pieces for these reveal demos and they took another route here which I think disappointed some people who just wanted to see shit blow up. This demo, though, let them show the improvements to gameplay they have made as well as all their cool new tech, but if you were expecting a falling building or crashing plane then this might disappoint.

I was just as much flabbergasted at people not finding the footage amazing. All the little details and animations, especially the lighting. Can't wait to see the details you speak of in this version.

I was there in person during the live demo. The game is very beautiful. There's nothing to worry about with this game's graphics. I haven't watched the video to see what everyone is tripping about, but being in the front rows at the keynote... it looks like a next generation Uncharted.

They are part of that secret club, where people get to play games that've been barely rumoured about, with graphics that'll literally blow your head off because your brains can't handle the beauty of it.

In all seriousness, I've been wondering this for a long while as well, whenever there has been a trailer for a new game and good bunch of the comments consist of people saying it "looks like crap" or "not great at all". I mean, it's okay for it to not blow your minds, but on what standars doesn't it look good? On PC standards? I know all multiplatform games obviously look better on PC, but not so that it would be lightyears ahead of console stuff, unless you're the type of person who feels like the game's completely ruined by one blurry wall texture or that there's only 2xAA sharpness going on, instead of FFSA16XXSSOD or whatever.

Not denying the game looks fabulous, just a shame the gameplay looked so mediocre, nice to see a bit more exploration though.

Yeah, my issue was never with the visuals. I think it looks nice. I just wish Naughty Dog didn't go back to making a clunky third-person shooter after The Last of Us. It feels like a step back.

I slipped into a coma after what felt like an hour of painstakingly slow rockclimbing. The falling water at the start looks nice though. We've come a long way from Commandos that's for sure.

They showed what most of an Uncharted game is. They showed realistic gameplay, not a huge set piece. I appreciated seeing normal gameplay rather that one of the biggest moments of the game.

@raven10: You've got a good eye for detail and you are right about compression. The difference between PS3 and PS4 quality graphics are in the details and those details are compressed away by streams and youtube. Even that 'uncompressed' footage still has some compression going on, although it's a lot better then youtube.

I've watched the stream and I was impressed by the graphics, especially the shading of some objects (light reflecting of the plants and wet surfaces). Seeing the details from that mp4 file makes it even more impressive! They really have the best skin shader I've seen in a game so far, sub surface scattering is used by the right amount, especially the in-game cut-scene at the end shows that to great effect; those faces!

Some details I noticed:
- when Drake shines his flashlight at the water, it causes caustic reflections on the cave walls
- kicking the guy in face caused his nose to bleed
- guy falling of the cliff falls through branches and leafs, which react accordingly to his weight

Really amazing stuff and the gameplay looks awesome as well. I'm excited!

@randyf: Did you even see the video. They clearly learned a lot from TLOU and they are using it in this game. Look how Nathan stealths around some dudes and silently takes out others. It's not all out combat all the time like the old Uncharted games but gives you the option to hide/get away from some enemies and combat situations just like TLOU. This is very clearly a Uncharted game lead by Neil Druckman and Bruce Straley.

Heh, Commandos 2 actually came to my mind, when I was looking at all the foliage around the environment. I think the second one looked bloody amazing back then.

@dussck: All the bouncing light and shadow in the cave was super impressive. I didn't mention it because you could mostly see it even in the compressed video, but their lighting engine is definitely incredibly impressive. Really my only issue was that when the light was reflecting off the wet rocks it caused some shimmering artifacts I assume were caused by some post-process technique, maybe AA. The skin shader was definitely super impressive as well. I think their work with small facial movements are great and they also have character's eyes move around slightly and focus on what they are looking at which takes away from the dead eye effect seen in so many other motion captured CG sequences in both games and movies.

One of the problems Uncharted 3 had was that they showed most of the biggest moments. I hope they don't do that again.

@castiel said:

It's just a shame we already been doing stealth kills for years, this game epitomizes "Meh" which is already coming worryingly normal with this generation.

While the gameplay footage of UC4 looks pretty good and there are a lot of gameplay animations. The recent trailer isn't on the same level as the E3 footage. They don't look even close actually.

I'd recommend you guys check out the Naughty Dog panel from PSX, Bringing an Icon to PS4 (or something like that).

They get down close to the character model and some of the techniques being used. Textures, lighting, facial animation. All very impressive stuff. Especially the detailed leather with stitches.

Bruce & Neil were the creative directors for Uncharted 2 as well.

Also, a lot of people seem to be forgetting that both Uncharted 2 & 3 already had elements of stealth in there. The core difference is that in Uncharted 4 it looks like you'll actually be able to lose their sight and retreat back into stealth should you be caught, whereas in 2 & 3 once you were spotted it was on from that point. Don't get me wrong, there's clearly a little more going on in Uncharted 4, but stealth has been apart of the series for a while now.

Cool, thanks, will check this out. At least by now I think people get that the 720p livestream they are watching isn't going to show off the game as it will actually look. Most Twitch streams look like garbage too, but people at least sorta understand why. ND should have posted a torrent URL during the stream, although if it was truly live maybe that's more complicated.

(And can I say I fucking hate sites like the OP linked with those full-screen pop-over ads!! They are driving me to unfortunately have to ad-block my whole network because they really infuriate me on my iPad.)

Not always, there were situations in Uncharted 2 and 3 where you could return to stealth after trading shots, in maps large enough to hide in. One such map was the one at the middle of Uncharted 2, that was composed of wrecked passenger cars caught in a blizzard. Although most maps didn't allow for that.

@whizzedoutwoz: Meh, is what a lot of people said about TLOU and to a certain degree those people that maintain that stance aren't weird for doing so. Neither that nor UC1+2+3 had markedly different gameplay to a standard 3rd person action adventure game.

What sets them apart is that they are always really well executed games and people shouldn't expect any different here.

@raven10: The Tomorrow Children guys were speculating that Uncharted 4 is also might be using a similar lighting system as the one in their game (Voxel Cone Raytracing). This speculation was about a month before this demo however.