I disagree - adding RT to games that weren’t designed for it often (but not always) wrecks the original art direction.
Quake II is a great example; I think the raytraced version looks like absolute ass. Sure, it has fancy shadows and reflections, but all that does is highlight how old the assets are.
Portal with ray tracing is a really cool demo, and Ive used it on the past to show off ray tracing. But man its just not as pretty as the old portal because it lacks the charm, its like those nature photos that are blown out with HDR
I always loved the graphics of Portal 2 but didn’t really see the appeal of those from Portal 1. I think the “with-rtx” version was more on the portal 2 side, so I was fine with it.
I disagree, I think a lot of raytraced shaders successful make the game look better while still leaning into the stylized look. I also think it’s unfair to say the game looks bad originally. It doesn’t look realistic, but it has a consistent and compelling visual style.
Look at the Minecraft update trailers for example. They go in that direction even further, by simplifying all of the textures. Yet even with the perfect offline path tracing, it doesn’t look bad.
often (but not always) wrecks the original art direction.
Which is sometimes a nice benefit. Not to talk about the “layer” in a specific color that suddenly goes away if you enable levelsplus in Reshade. The most extreme example i’ve seen was Elex 1.
The best examples of raytracing are in applying it to old games, like Quake II or Portal or Minecraft.
Newer games were already hitting diminishing returns on photo realism. Adding ray tracing takes them from 95% photo realistic to 96%.
I disagree - adding RT to games that weren’t designed for it often (but not always) wrecks the original art direction.
Quake II is a great example; I think the raytraced version looks like absolute ass. Sure, it has fancy shadows and reflections, but all that does is highlight how old the assets are.
Portal with ray tracing is a really cool demo, and Ive used it on the past to show off ray tracing. But man its just not as pretty as the old portal because it lacks the charm, its like those nature photos that are blown out with HDR
I always loved the graphics of Portal 2 but didn’t really see the appeal of those from Portal 1. I think the “with-rtx” version was more on the portal 2 side, so I was fine with it.
Same with Minecraft. Minecraft looks like crap, and improving the lighting, shadows and so on just shows that off even more.
Minecraft is a game that’s deliberately not about the looks.
I disagree, I think a lot of raytraced shaders successful make the game look better while still leaning into the stylized look. I also think it’s unfair to say the game looks bad originally. It doesn’t look realistic, but it has a consistent and compelling visual style.
Look at the Minecraft update trailers for example. They go in that direction even further, by simplifying all of the textures. Yet even with the perfect offline path tracing, it doesn’t look bad.
Which is sometimes a nice benefit. Not to talk about the “layer” in a specific color that suddenly goes away if you enable levelsplus in Reshade. The most extreme example i’ve seen was Elex 1.