I recently saw the Kite Demo and spoke to a new developer about Game development and all he took from the kite demo was “We need 8K textures, I can’t settle for anything less, We need Dynamic GI and real time AO and Ultra HD…NOW!”
I tried to reason with the kid but his mind was heavily tainted and I feel if we continue to “pretend to strive for stuff we don’t need at this moment” it could be really bad for the future.
It’s already pretty bad Today but I see a light at the end of the Tunnel.
I have had very good experiences with Unreal since crossing over from Unity…but something still bugs me…i did some research to see if I was the only one and I am glad I ain’t, many people have been pondering the same thing and here is a sample from just a while ago.
As you all know Unreal Engine 4.8 is coming soon, promising many awesome features of Tomorrow.
And their lies the problem.
Take a look at what the Feedback from the Roadmap is showing in the Rendering section.
The top Two Rendering Votes come up and show something very interesting.
They Show people of Tomorrow
DX12 (490 Votes)
Dynamic GI Research (210 Votes)
And people of Today
Forward Shading Support (450 Votes)
Additional Shading Models Supported (153 Votes)
Many others asking for Mobile improvements (Several Hundred Votes).
It seems theirs a portion of people asking for improvements in Technology that has little bearing to the real world such as DX12.
These people do not seem to understand the real world implications of their vote. I am going to let GI slide because lets face it -its awesome but in all seriousness its not likely a tech that “Today’s” world will benefit from.
Prioritizing DX12 or Tomorrows Tech over Today’s tech will continue to bring forth a very niche market and continue to divide gaming and Technology in a negative way.
The belief stems from these two.
“I can only get better by throwing away or replacing what I have”
“I can constantly improve what I have by thinking of new ways to use it”
in Plain English it reads
“I just bought this graphics card last year, hey a new one just came out, my friend just got it, he said mine is outdated now, I should buy the new one to stay hip!”
“I have had my graphics card for a while now, it still runs great, as long as we continue to focus on ingenuity and improvements the future is good!”
Today’s world is still primarily Run with Mid to low end technology.
But That’s a huge market in comparison to Tomorrows people.
Theirs all this new tech coming out, PS4, Xbox one - these consoles sold very high amounts, however almost every person who owns one will tell you their lineup is horrible, worse than any to date on a console.
But Why? The Tech is there, isn’t it, so whats wrong?
Well its called Reality, people realize its not all about Graphics anymore…its about what makes a game memorable - these “other aspects” that seem to be disappearing.
Today’s market is filled with the next Call of Duty, Zombie FPS, Realistic Open World MMO and so on. Some would have you believe that is what the market wants and thus where resources should go.
No, that’s not it, that’s whats available so people either take it or leave it - their is no other choice. Players don’t know any other way because the way things are structured it doesn’t make it easy for creators to come forth and create without hardship and struggle.
One of the major reasons I am making this post its own thing is because it all comes back to us developers and artists/designers etc - having a voice.
All I want is for Epic to win, via Improvements and Features we need now, Workflow and Optimization and so on. Because if I
win so does Epic and if Epic wins I do to.
To bring a specific example, I include one female model with a looping walk cycle, one ground plane, a Skybox and a single directional light.
In Unity I get an average 1000 FPS and about 70 FPS in Unreal…
What could possibly be eating so much FPS right out of the box in an almost empty scene?
Why does research into this only lead me to a very simple guide on changing video settings which actually doesn’t help me because the video settings are “grouped” into general Low to High categories rather than right out in the open to deal with?
Epic is partly responsible also of this mentality as their engines defaults is activating so many unnecessary image effects and features that only a few games will need while also making it a hassle to try and turn them off with some being very difficult and actually wired to be on(tonemapping…).this happening out of the box with Unreal is another worry and is something to improve on but for some reason for me if I set video settings from epic to “high” things get pretty bad with shadows disappearing, since when was High actually low? (wait til you see the actual low setting - a blurry nightmare)
I am not alone, most of today’s games don’t run on decent frame rates even on the PS4…whats up with that, and they certainly can’t leverage any of these DX12 or GI features. Most of them have to run at 30 Fps without GI…I recall the standard being at 60 Fps once upon a time.
It all changed when Epic changed their model to We succeed when you succeed.
So calling you guys out, I vouch my vote on Heavy Optimizations, Workflow improvements and many other things that should already be there and stuff we need right now, stop messing with stuff that only applies to the very few developers out there who can actually afford to make use of these AAA titles with their deep pockets using these new super high tech but practically still unusable features for everyone else.
Most of Unreal Engines users are people who don’t have access to large Treasure chests full of gold or an Army of Unsullied or heaven forbid Dragons.
And all of our objectives are the same - to make our dreams come to life the fastest and yet most efficient AND enjoyable way we can.
This is why I vote for Today and not Tomorrow.
If you actually think about it, Today comes first and Tomorrow after, it is the natural order of things.
I have had a horrible 5 years with Unity and Cryengine ain’t really workflow material.
Unreal however has something…a light about it…and it shows.
So in a nutshell - Focus on the present, don’t run away and avoid expending resources where it isn’t needed.
I want to see hundreds of FPS and a lifted 120 Cap in Unreal, I want an Improved Workflow and lighter editor.
I want…to bring my dreams to life and not suffer so much anymore. But hey that’s just a theory, A Game Theory 
What do You think?