Shenmue III - Game photography

rjo

Joined
Jan 1, 2020
Here we go, over a year in the Playing, Making and Procrastinating
(I actually released these in FB early 2021 and forgot to drop them here).
My full Shenmue III screen grabs at full resolution.
Be sure to Check out the VR 360 ones cause they are the most breath-taking.

Feel free to set as wall paper, print and frame on wall, use for review, just give me a shout out.
Comment and let me know which ones you like.

Bailu:

Naiowu:
 
Some beatufiul pictures. I really wished console players could enjoy the moded, pulled-back camera because it really highlights the game's biggest visual strength in my mind; the environments.
 
Some beatufiul pictures. I really wished console players could enjoy the moded, pulled-back camera because it really highlights the game's biggest visual strength in my mind; the environments.

I agree that the environments are strong, but I do also think that the biggest visual strength is Ryo Hazuki. I'm still incredibly impressed with his character model and the number of pixels that went into the character models actually exceeded anything else done that year in games.

Sadly Shenmue 3 will always get dealt an unfair hand.
 
I agree that the environments are strong, but I do also think that the biggest visual strength is Ryo Hazuki. I'm still incredibly impressed with his character model and the number of pixels that went into the character models actually exceeded anything else done that year in games.

Sadly Shenmue 3 will always get dealt an unfair hand.

Although Ryo model did improve a lot during development and I am overall relatively happy with the model outside a few nitpicky complaints (i.e. I wish his jacket was darker brown) I disagree it came close to the best model in games of that year. Death Stranding is just leaps and bounds more impressive, both in facial capture, articulation, modeling, and general lighting-

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And that's not even comparing it to other 2019 releases like Red Dead. Again those two are big-budget games so I didn't expect Shenmue 3 to necessary compete, that's why I still think the environments are a standout given the games relatively small budget they were able to craft some amazing spaces and put in a lot of detail.
 
I read somewhere that one of the little girls in Shenmue 3 had more pixels than anyone else in gaming history that year so that would include Red Dead - if you want to debate it, I'll look into my archives of articles and find it, not to mention Death Stranding (one of the most overhyped piles of crap in gaming) uses cheating face scanning technology compared to actually drawing and animating a face.
 
I read somewhere that one of the little girls in Shenmue 3 had more pixels than anyone else in gaming history that year so that would include Red Dead - if you want to debate it, I'll look into my archives of articles and find it, not to mention Death Stranding (one of the most overhyped piles of crap in gaming) uses cheating face scanning technology compared to actually drawing and animating a face.

I would like to see some proof of that as Shenmue 3 models while nice are far from bleeding edge. In addition what constitutes a good model is a lot more than pure pixel count. Eye shaders, skin textures, diffused and real time lighting along with other properties can truly sell a good character model. And that’s not even touching the topic of animation which let’s be honest, wasn’t Shenmue 3 strongest suit.

Also irrespective how you feel about Death Stranding, I would hardly call face scanning (which wasn’t done with every model) cheating, by that same rationale Yakuza 0 or LA Noire ‘cheated’ too. It takes a lot of effort to get good looking models and few would argue Death Stranding doesn’t succeed on that level.

All that is to say I am still impressed by visual detail they were able to create on such a limited budget but I can also be objective and understand it’s far from best in class like the original games and that’s okay too.
 

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I would like to see some proof of that as Shenmue 3 models while nice are far from bleeding edge. In addition what constitutes a good model is a lot more than pure pixel count. Eye shaders, skin textures, diffused and real time lighting along with other properties can truly sell a good character model. And that’s not even touching the topic of animation which let’s be honest, wasn’t Shenmue 3 strongest suit.

What was wrong with Shenmue 3's animation?

Fun Fact:

A random Shenmue 3 child NPC...

NVDCocU.png



jpg



...has more than double the amount of polygons than a main character like Noctis of FFXV:

YMjfCd7.png



final-fantasy-xv-preview-i-question-my-allegiance-6.jpg
 
What was wrong with Shenmue 3's animation?

I am not sure if you are being facetious but many things, which are well-known and I don't really need to relitigate. Suzuki himself was aware of the shortcomings and addressed this himself. Just a reality of limited budget they were working with-

"I hear people saying that the movements of the characters look a bit stiff," Suzuki acknowledges. "Of course, I'm aware of what's required for them to look completely natural - with a proper studio set-up, and going through all the steps involved like the other development companies. But if we were to have done that for Shenmue III, I knew we would only have been able to include about a tenth of all the motions I felt were needed. So it came down to a decision to accept 80% rather than going for 100%, in order to achieve this magnitude of difference".

Full interview


Fun Fact:

A random Shenmue 3 child NPC...

NVDCocU.png



jpg



...has more than double the amount of polygons than a main character like Noctis of FFXV:

YMjfCd7.png



final-fantasy-xv-preview-i-question-my-allegiance-6.jpg

If that tris number for Lin Zhou's model is accurate that is a high number but it kind of proves my earlier point. Polygon count especially in the last generation or two is far from the only barometer for determining the detail and reality of a character model. You have to consider shaders, bone counts, effects, and overall scene geometry and density.

While looking up polygon counts I saw the Kratos model from God of War on PS4, 80,000 in total. Far less than Lin Zhou is supposedly right. Yet few would argue which looked more impressive and that's because it isn't just about a polygon count-

The Kratos model for the new God of War was created from scratch with the intent of pushing the technology of what we have done before at Santa Monica Studio,” says Rafael Grassetti, art director at Santa Monica Studios. “The geometry was made with a higher density from most of the games because we were going to explore things like muscle deformation systems underneath the skin and we needed enough geometry to drive that information.
“Kratos from God of War 2 (PS2) had 5,700 polygons for his entire body, 1,200 of those for the face and used five textures. Kratos from God of War 3 (PS3) had 64,000 polygons for his entire body, 5,700 for the face, which was already a big improvement. But compared to what we can do with the PS4 system, it is still not enough for what we wanted to accomplish. The Kratos for God of War (PS4) has 80,000 polygons in total, with 32,000 for the face – 30x what we had for the PS2 models.
“That allowed us to create systems that could deform that geometry and achieve a level of detail for the muscles that we couldn’t do before. On top of that, we used a combination of layers of normal maps for smaller wrinkles and pores that we weren’t able to use in past generations because of the limitation of textures. Kratos (PS4) uses over 140 textures.”

Article

I think you will find many on this board who prefer Ryo's passport model and from what I can gather I believe it was only 5k for the face.

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So, you question if it's right when the proof is in front of you, but you still think you're right? You watch too much Mad Men.

I still don't see the problem with Shenmue 3's animation, but okay, I guess because he said he admitted he was low on funds that confirms everything. :eek:
 
So, you question if it's right when the proof is in front of you, but you still think you're right? You watch too much Mad Men.

I was surprised by that polygon count of 200K because from what I researched online, most AAA titles including Naughty Dog's last-gen efforts are generally 100-120K per model. So it would seem almost overdone in terms of raw poly count although in some respects some can argue Suzuki and co didn't particularly manage their performance budget especially well with Shenmue 3 on consoles with uncapped framerate hovering in the mid-40s on PS4 Pro or mid-'30s on PS4 and the experience wasn't especially smooth.

Let's remember you began this discussion on the premise that and I quote "I'm still incredibly impressed with his character model and the number of pixels that went into the character models actually exceeded anything else done that year in games."

Yet in 2017 we had games like Horizon Zero Dawn having certain models in excess of 550K polygons.


Yet you can continue to ignore the substance of my posts.

I still don't see the problem with Shenmue 3's animation, but okay, I guess because he said he admitted he was low on funds that confirms everything. :eek:

Just because you don't see any problems with Shenmue 3's animations doesn't make that an objective truth. Anyone that's played any modern game or experienced videogames with motion matching as one example can see the huge gulf in systems and implementation. Again, I feel like I need to restate this but with Shenmue 3's KS budget I don't expect bleeding-edge graphics and technology. It's not a fair comparison, but let's not kid ourselves the industry in terms of character models, shaders, lighting, animation and a slew of other areas hasn’t established new standards.
 
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I was surprised by that polygon count of 200K because from what I researched online, most AAA titles including Naughty Dog's last-gen efforts are generally 100-120K per model. So it would seem almost overdone in terms of raw poly count although in some respects some can argue Suzuki and co didn't particularly manage their performance budget especially well with Shenmue 3 on consoles with uncapped framerate hovering in the mid-40s on PS4 Pro or mid-'30s on PS4 and the experience wasn't especially smooth.

Let's remember you began this discussion on the premise that and I quote "I'm still incredibly impressed with his character model and the number of pixels that went into the character models actually exceeded anything else done that year in games."

Yet in 2017 we had games like Horizon Zero Dawn having certain models in excess of 550K polygons.


Yet you can continue to ignore the substance of my posts.



Just because you don't see any problems with Shenmue 3's animations doesn't make that an objective truth. Anyone that's played any modern game or experienced videogames with motion matching as one example can see the huge gulf in systems and implementation. Again, I feel like I need to restate this but with Shenmue 3's KS budget I don't expect bleeding-edge graphics and technology. It's not a fair comparison, but let's not kid ourselves the industry in terms of character models, shaders, lighting, animation and a slew of other areas hasn’t established new standards.

There is no substance to be had with Sony timed exclusives because they make weekender popcorn flicks, not great games. Oh no, not a giant robot dinosaur. The skill and time it must have taken to make that soulless thing. If you want substance or animation, go play NINJA Gaiden where time and effort went into every move and did not completely rely on mocap and facial recognition like those seen in revolting, mediocre and irredeemable games like Death Stranding.

Two weeks to animate one move without mocap > 10 seconds to quickly scan a face and call yourself an amazing artist when the AI from the technology did the strong majority of the work
 
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There is no substance to be had with Sony timed exclusives because they make weekender popcorn flicks, not great games. Oh no, not a giant robot dinosaur. The skill and time it must have taken to make that soulless thing. If you want substance or animation, go play NINJA Gaiden where time and effort went into every move and did not completely rely on mocap and facial recognition like those seen in revolting, mediocre and irredeemable games like Death Stranding.

Two weeks to animate one move without mocap > 10 seconds to quickly scan a face and call yourself an amazing artist when the AI from the technology did the strong majority of the work

Congratulations, you have demonstrated and proven you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
 
Here we go, over a year in the Playing, Making and Procrastinating
(I actually released these in FB early 2021 and forgot to drop them here).
My full Shenmue III screen grabs at full resolution.
Be sure to Check out the VR 360 ones cause they are the most breath-taking.

Feel free to set as wall paper, print and frame on wall, use for review, just give me a shout out.
Comment and let me know which ones you like.

Bailu:

Naiowu:
These shots are awesome? Mind if we advetise these on the social media for the site? Full credits given of course.
 
There is no substance to be had with Sony timed exclusives because they make weekender popcorn flicks, not great games. Oh no, not a giant robot dinosaur. The skill and time it must have taken to make that soulless thing. If you want substance or animation, go play NINJA Gaiden where time and effort went into every move and did not completely rely on mocap and facial recognition like those seen in revolting, mediocre and irredeemable games like Death Stranding.

Two weeks to animate one move without mocap > 10 seconds to quickly scan a face and call yourself an amazing artist when the AI from the technology did the strong majority of the work
fascinating. mocap does hit an uncanny valley hu.
 
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