MLB The Show Graphics Discussion Thread

[breakfastcat]

Quote: Originally Posted by tnixen

No I think it's just you trying to find any improvements to the graphics. I swear this "almost" looks like a PS3 version

Eh, you're probably right. Could just be the framing of the shot. The grass certainly doesn't look any better.

[breakfastcat]

"Captured on Next Gen Hardware"

Why are we still calling PS5 and XSX/S "next gen"? They've been out for nearly 3 1/2 years. We are firmly in "current gen" territory and have been for a while.

Or maybe they actually are referring to PS6 and the game will still look the same when it releases on that.

[tnixen]

Quote: Originally Posted by breakfastcat

"Captured on Next Gen Hardware" Why are we still calling PS5 and XSX/S "next gen"? They've been out for nearly 3 1/2 years. We are firmly in "current gen" territory and have been for a while. Or maybe they actually are referring to PS6 and the game will still look the same when it releases on that.

Nailed it!!!

[Ghost Of The Year]

The animation I would like to see cleaned up a bit, after a flyout or popout, right after whichever player caught the ball releases his throw, that player disappears a split-second before the camera changes to another shot elsewhere. Why!? Just change the camera to another shot elsewhere a split-second before he disappears. I don't need to see him disappear.

[puppies_on_acid]

Quote: Originally Posted by canes21

The fact of the matter is that for a AAA game that is developed by a first party developer from Sony, this game lacks a lot in the graphical department compared to about any other AAA game for the current gen, and it lacks compared to many prior gen games as well. While many people don't really know all the technical information surrounding graphics and just roll their eyes at things like people talking about water splash effects, that does not excuse that the game has plenty of dated textures, no traces of ray tracing, a clear lacking of things like subsurface scattering, zero cloth physics, and many other items that are very very common in games today. Most games haven't looked awful for nearly 10 years now. We hit a point graphically where games age a lot less and are less of a hassle to go back and play because the visuals hold up so well. The Show is far from an atrocious looking game, but it is also equally as far from being a technical marvel. It doesn't need to be a technical marvel, but it's also pretty far from being up to the standard graphically that most AAA games, sports and non-sports, are achieving on the regular. I remember years ago when they did a dev stream talking about how they were starting to incorporate PBR textures into the game. It was neat. PBR textures were becoming the norm back then. Now, you look at the graphics in the series still, and you notice that there are still plenty of textures that aren't PBR textures. There's still plenty of flat looking areas that look like they don't even have a normal map at all. You focus on the key parts of a baseball game and you see skin textures that are comically bad, jerseys that look rough even when you zoom in and get the best LOD model, the grass and dirt are pretty bad at nearly every park, the texture resolution in many areas is questionable. For example, even when playing on the prettier graphical settings, you'll still see extremely low res pants textures on the batters from a batting camera leading to the glove pocket being very jagged and bad looking. For this day and age, things like that should not be happening in a AAA game. While the game may look good enough to play, and many old timers here may think it looks fine because they grew up playing Duck Hunt(I did too), that does not mean the game is well behind the modern standard graphically. This thread is also here to have a dedicated place for graphical talk, so when people do mention smaller details in the graphics like splash effects, subsurface scattering, etc. They shouldn't be shrugged off as nitpicking. That's tossing someone's opinion away simply because you don't think like they do. Instead, it should be accepted that those details are small and we can acknowledge them lacking doesn't make the game a 0 out of 10, but we should also be able to accept those are things that should be expected in a AAA game in 2024. Heck, those are things you'd have expected in a AAA game in 2018. Simply put, from a technical standpoint, The Show is lacking compared to your average AAA releases and really even your AA releases as well. A AAA game developed by a first party studio should have significantly more technical details in the game and that's just an objective fact. Whether the graphics are good enough for you is irrelevant to the fact that this series is lacking any technical details that became the common standard years ago.

Yeah, this is a great post. Absolutely on point.

I do game development in Unreal Engine and my area of expertise is in PBR Textures. I too was excited when they started talking about and showing off the new PBR they were doing many years ago. The problem is it seems like they never finished and they seem to have done the bare minimum on the textures that do actually have PBR, mainly just an albedo texture, a normal map, and a roughness map, then maybe occasionally a metalness map on metal objects....but it's hard to tell on those sometimes. I mean they should really be doing a displacement map, detail map, and AO map on just about everything as well. Then depending on the texture there should be proper translucency maps, Opacity maps, and transmission maps. Of course you have to optimize for all these added textures, but that's not hard to do.

If they were to add proper ray-traced lighting on top of it, that would go a long way to making the lighting look so much better.

[ltw0303cavs]

The fact is this engine is 3 years past due. They know it , we know it. No streamer is going to say anything because they want their SDS goodie bag. DD drives their channel numbers and grinders don't care about aesthetics . SDS has cultivated you to be satisfied with this product. They want $120 bucks for that limited edition and the game has not evolved and what's the ben saddder ? is people will buy it

[breakfastcat]

Quote: Originally Posted by puppies_on_acid

Yeah, this is a great post. Absolutely on point. I do game development in Unreal Engine and my area of expertise is in PBR Textures. I too was excited when they started talking about and showing off the new PBR they were doing many years ago. The problem is it seems like they never finished and they seem to have done the bare minimum on the textures that do actually have PBR, mainly just an albedo texture, a normal map, and a roughness map, then maybe occasionally a metalness map on metal objects....but it's hard to tell on those sometimes. I mean they should really be doing a displacement map, detail map, and AO map on just about everything as well. Then depending on the texture there should be proper translucency maps, Opacity maps, and transmission maps. Of course you have to optimize for all these added textures, but that's not hard to do. If they were to add proper ray-traced lighting on top of it, that would go a long way to making the lighting look so much better.

This is a great post, and also kind of speaks to a pattern I've noticed with SDS where they'll add a great feature one year and everyone agrees that it's a great start but can see obvious ways it could get better in the future, but then they just leave it as is with little to no improvements in subsequent years while they work on some other feature for the year that will just get abandoned the next year. It happened with the PBR textures like you said. It happened with the Batting Stance editor. It happened with the Stadium Creator. It'll probably happen again this year with the Face Scan. The only things that seem to ever get iterated on are DD modes.

[canes21]

Seems the disappointment is not just here at OS. Unlike most subreddits, The Show subreddit has generally been the most positive gaming subreddit I have frequented for years. Hardly ever do I even see a single negative post about the series on that subreddit. It's typically just constant praise for the game or highlight clips.

This year, though, is different. I've seen more negativity about the upcoming game there than positivity. A lot of posts about the graphics once again being behind the times. It clearly does not have the momentum that the #FixMaddenFranchise movement had, but it's the first time I can remember seeing a collective disappointment among many in the various communities with this series. It's not just graphics that I am seeing complaints about either.

It seems OS is far from alone in having many that think the lack of graphical updates is disappointing. Many of the issues brought up in this thread have been mentioned over there as well, so it seems the more "casual" groups are also coming to the same conclusions we are with regards to the lack of progression with the series.