Screenshot Comparison of Original and Redux

[Mothhive]

I'll start off by saying that I love this game and it totally blew me away when I played it when it was originally launched, and I'm grateful to the devs who put work into providing us with a version in an updated engine for free, but when I started a new game in the Redux version to see how it looked, it didn't quite blow me away like it originally did, and while it ran smooth as butter, it seemed like it looked worse somehow.

I initially put it down to me having a rose tinted view of the original, or maybe the fact that some amazing looking games like The Witcher 3 have come out since which may have stolen some of it's thunder, but as I continued to play I felt there was more to it. Luckily I love to take screenshots, so decided to try and recreate some of the ones I took in the original so that I could compare them, and there are definately differences, some good, and some bad. Here are some comparissons with both versions running with maxxed out settings:


In the following comparisson, there seems to be an awful lot more fog and shorter draw distances in the redux when compared to the original, and the colours seem to be washed out by the over the top bloom.

Original
Redux


Again, a bit more fog, and the reflections look a lot more basic in the Redux version.

Original
Redux


This one is fairly close to the original, and while there does seem to be a bit more fog, it looks like some of the textures were improved, and while you can't notice it in screenshots, the movement of the water seems much more realistic in the redux version.

Original
Redux


The last one has some interesting differences. The redux version actually looks more vibrant, but I'm not a fan of the excessivebloom and less detail in the backgrounds and reflections. Looks like they improved the textures a little though, and oddly changed the shape of the rocks by the tunnel entrance!

Original
Redux



Anyway, just thought I'd share my obervations and see if anyone else noticed anything similar, or found any intereting changes from the original.

TLDR: Good job with the port, please let us turn down bloom and fog. :)

[Kain Klarden]

Seems like Digital Foundry guys at Eurogamer actually looked at the PS4 version a few months back: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-the-re-engineering-of-ethan-carter
Reflections in the water thing was mentioned there too and even explained. Reading it now:)

[SuperPope]

Thanks for putting that comparison together! I played all the way through the original on a low-end Alienware Alpha earlier this year and thought it was one of the most beautiful and smoothly running games I've played. The overall mood, fog, bloom, and washed out reflections in the new version just don't seem right. Glad I played it before they made this version, as I would have just assumed the new version was the best version.

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

Have to say that I noticed that stupid looking white mist effect as soon as I left the tunnel.
As the camera comes forward out of your control, it looks fine, then you see it change as control switches to the player, and suddenly the whole screen has this white mist across it.
It's kind of like fog, but not how the rest of the fog in the game looks, and certainly not as good as the original.
Is there any way to turn this off? Because without it the game would just be breathtakingly beautiful.

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

Unfortunately (and like metro redux) it's now unplayable for me.
Being so stupid as I am, I tried to use the control options to switch movement from WASD to cursor keys.
Well, cursor keys also control left/right turning, and don't change just because you bind them to something else. So I turn AND strafe.
That's fine, why is that unplayable? Just change it back, right? WRONG.
Switched it back to default, but WASD now does nothing. All other controls have switched back to default, but WASD doesn't have any effect on any control at all. I can still move/turn with cursor keys though, so that's nice.
So? Why not just edit the controls manually back to WASD? Right? Wrong. I did that, still the same. Input says WASD is for movement, but it does nothing.
So now I have a game completely useless, because I was naive enough to think I could use the control options provided.


What's that? Edit the .ini? There doesn't seem to be one. It was possible to do it with the original game. Because that had the exact same problem until they patched it to work properly. But there is no .ini file I can find to change control options at all.

[MLGesus]

wobbler eredeti hozzászólása:

Have to say that I noticed that stupid looking white mist effect as soon as I left the tunnel.
As the camera comes forward out of your control, it looks fine, then you see it change as control switches to the player, and suddenly the whole screen has this white mist across it.
It's kind of like fog, but not how the rest of the fog in the game looks, and certainly not as good as the original.
Is there any way to turn this off? Because without it the game would just be breathtakingly beautiful.

Play around with the r.color.XXX settings in the console mode. I personally prefer to change r.color.mid to 0.4 instead of 0.5, darkening the scene a little bit.

[Solarstrike]

I use a television as my monitor. Has all kinds of graphic and color options. I don't seem to notice any difference graphically, though i'm still tweaking the options. Still looks incredible though.

The "mist" is an atmospheric effect i believe. Not sure if physics related per the Unreal engine? Haven't looked at it closely enough to see if there's propagation, as in Metro 2033 Redux and Last Light Redux.

Really spent some time in the original, looking at all the different texture work. This game has some of the best texture work around imho. Rocks, trees/wood, ground cover, interior lighting. Great stuff

[lobstermadness]

The issue for me is that the added fog and mist effects obscure the great textures and colors -- in effect it flattens the scenery.

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

lobstermadness eredeti hozzászólása:

The issue for me is that the added fog and mist effects obscure the great textures and colors -- in effect it flattens the scenery.

I noticed that when I take a screenshot this mist seems to go away in the screengrab.
I have a grab in my screenshots list on my steam profile right now, and it didn't look anything like that as I took it.

[Ghuldarkar]

I've noticed some very visible texture seams in different places in the redux version. Here's one comparison:

Original

Redux

[Agnul]

I noticed very well that water is reaaally worse than original

[that's what she said]

Agnul eredeti hozzászólása:

I noticed very well that water is reaaally worse than original

Yeah, a lot lot worse. I even thought 'reflections' setting doesn't work, tried to turn it off, restart and then turn on and restart again. My guess it's just awful by design. When other differences are neglectable, water reflections looks awful in Redux - instead of clean life-like reflections there is blurry mud which looks like a good old 'cubemaps' method. It's so low detailed it looks out of place with such lush visuals of the game.

[Ghuldarkar]

that's what she said eredeti hozzászólása:

Agnul eredeti hozzászólása:

I noticed very well that water is reaaally worse than original

Yeah, a lot lot worse. I even thought 'reflections' setting doesn't work, tried to turn it off, restart and then turn on and restart again. My guess it's just awful by design. When other differences are neglectable, water reflections looks awful in Redux - instead of clean life-like reflections there is blurry mud which looks like a good old 'cubemaps' method. It's so low detailed it looks out of place with such lush visuals of the game.

I think in another thread it said that that's because of UE4, which does stuff different and they decided to just leave it on factory reflections or something like that.

[Dreambox]

can't believe how the U3 Version look so much better, U4 is foggy as hell with bad water reflection and texture seams, too bad

[lobstermadness]

I think the devs are being cagey about the 2 versions. The redux was made to run on a console's GPU and while it looks *great*, the earlier PC version looks better. The devs upped the contrast on some environment texture (not all) to make them "pop" visually, which is misleading some to think the graphics are better in the redux version. The "new" fog effects are too heavily used.

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

I have to say that as buggy as arkham knight was, it showed how good UE3 can still look.
I always thought it was UE4 when I saw the trailers, it wasn't until the game release I read somewhere it was UE3.
So I don't think there is too much that UE4 can do that can't be done with 3.
Certainly this game doesn't benefit from it too much. Maybe one of the bigger benefits I see is performance, because the game actually flies now, it just runs soo smooth. It was smooth before, don't get me wrong, but it's like glass now.