This week, fortnite got an update to Unreal Engine 5.1, and it is remarkable. You don't have to be a lover of the corpo-cartoon artstyle to appreciate the massive improvement in tech, with lighting being a particular focus. But as impressive as that is, perhaps moreso is the integration. You'll be lucky to find anyone saying it "doesn't look like fortnite". Models still pop out in the lighting the same way, the reflections arent out of place, and many of the most obvious changes, like denser foliage which the light beatufiully scatters off, are both quite well measured and are brought in with a whole new map. It is a wonderful demonstration that heavily stylised games can (sometimes) benefit from new tech, as well as a masterclass in making changes in the right places to integrate with an extremely well defined art style.
In the same week, Nvidia rereleases Valve's best looking and possibly most cherished game with a similar setup - new look with a particular focus on lighting. Except it looks like shit.
The general assets are the main issue. Stock Portal has this subtlety to a lot of it's assets and textures especially in the first half of the game that slowly creeps up more and more towards the conclusion. What initially seem like sterile test chamber walls show deliberate signs of age, scuff marks, and are slightly stained. Even in the very first room, the table is slightly scuffed. It's subtle, but pervasive stuff and is one of those things that gives the game a bit of an uneasy vibe. The new assets just straight up do not look like they fit together at all. When you're in sections where bits of white wall combine with the square pyramid-ish walls it just looks super off to the point where i'd assume they were outsourced to completely different studios or something, they dont look like they're from the same game at all and the same could be said for an awful lot of the assets.
The lighting is also outright comical at times. In the final boss fight the floor is so fucking reflective it's hard to parse. The reflections in general are seriously a problem and combined with a massive increase in constrast creates a whole bunch of very ugly scenes, particularly in the first half. The second half of the game fares better with it's more industrial environments and larger focus on shadow casting, which is probably the one thing i'd say is the one legitimate improvement in RTX portal, but it's a needle in a haystack and you'll be lucky to find a few frames of gameplay where there isnt some horribly judged asset or blinding reflection to be a bigger distraction.
What really sucks about Portal RTX is that it should work. A more subtle use of the tech, textures which were touched up rather than replaced and maybe focusing the super eyecatching effects on specific areas could have made Portal look generally improved. Even a drastic change in art style like say, the Demons Souls remake could have worked in it's own way in a different vision sort of thing to better show off the tech (and yes, that sort of approach is it's own can of worms). But what's here feels lazy, unthought, and destructive, and it's hard to tell what it's even really going for other than OOOH REFLECTIONS. Like a horse that lays down in front of you asking for a beating, this is the truest example we will probably ever get of companies putting tech, bigger numbers and flashiness before artistry. Hollow and pathetic. If everything made with this modset/whatever it is looks like this, it can all rot.
In the same week, Nvidia rereleases Valve's best looking and possibly most cherished game with a similar setup - new look with a particular focus on lighting. Except it looks like shit.
The general assets are the main issue. Stock Portal has this subtlety to a lot of it's assets and textures especially in the first half of the game that slowly creeps up more and more towards the conclusion. What initially seem like sterile test chamber walls show deliberate signs of age, scuff marks, and are slightly stained. Even in the very first room, the table is slightly scuffed. It's subtle, but pervasive stuff and is one of those things that gives the game a bit of an uneasy vibe. The new assets just straight up do not look like they fit together at all. When you're in sections where bits of white wall combine with the square pyramid-ish walls it just looks super off to the point where i'd assume they were outsourced to completely different studios or something, they dont look like they're from the same game at all and the same could be said for an awful lot of the assets.
The lighting is also outright comical at times. In the final boss fight the floor is so fucking reflective it's hard to parse. The reflections in general are seriously a problem and combined with a massive increase in constrast creates a whole bunch of very ugly scenes, particularly in the first half. The second half of the game fares better with it's more industrial environments and larger focus on shadow casting, which is probably the one thing i'd say is the one legitimate improvement in RTX portal, but it's a needle in a haystack and you'll be lucky to find a few frames of gameplay where there isnt some horribly judged asset or blinding reflection to be a bigger distraction.
What really sucks about Portal RTX is that it should work. A more subtle use of the tech, textures which were touched up rather than replaced and maybe focusing the super eyecatching effects on specific areas could have made Portal look generally improved. Even a drastic change in art style like say, the Demons Souls remake could have worked in it's own way in a different vision sort of thing to better show off the tech (and yes, that sort of approach is it's own can of worms). But what's here feels lazy, unthought, and destructive, and it's hard to tell what it's even really going for other than OOOH REFLECTIONS. Like a horse that lays down in front of you asking for a beating, this is the truest example we will probably ever get of companies putting tech, bigger numbers and flashiness before artistry. Hollow and pathetic. If everything made with this modset/whatever it is looks like this, it can all rot.