10 ms·

Metal Gear Solid V – Graphics Study

244 points by jsheard 9y ago

freeflight 9y ago
Does anybody know who actually owns Fox Engine at this point? Afaik it was Kojima Productions who created the engine, but Kojima and Konami split. Yet the Fox Engine wiki lists Metal Gear Survive as the only upcoming Fox Engine game, not Death Stranding. Death Stranding's wiki says it uses the Decima game engine. That, in turn, was developed by Guerilla Games and Kojima Productions. So from that situation, I guess it's Konami who now owns the Fox Engine? I wonder how that ended up happening, Kojima's own studio developing an engine and then he doesn't even get to keep it.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  They developed it while they were owned by Konami, so yeah its pretty natural it falls under the ownership of Konami by contract.
- spondyl 9y ago
  Kojima Productions, pre-Death Stranding, was only a subsidiary under Konami. As I understand, its purpose was to relieve Kojima of business responsibilities that a traditional executive would have. I would assume it was only a studio on paper and all assets and IP were still retained by Konami. I didn't realise until now but Fox Engine has also been used in the yearly PES Soccer games as well! After Kojima left, he reformed the studio as an actual independent company which is backed and funded by Sony with complete creative freedom. He toured studios around the world and decided to work with Guerilla Games, who built Decima for their title Horizon: Zero Dawn. They're simply using the engine and collaborating with Guerilla to make tweaks and modifications to suit their title. I believe it's not unlike the working relationship that Insomniac and Naughty Dog had in the PS2 days, where they would share tech and insights. So yeah, tldr: Fox Engine was always owned by Kojima. Kojima Productions was once a subsidiary and is now an independent entity. KojiProd is essentially borrowing Guerilla Games Decima Engine rather than building one from scratch. P.S. I'm just a fan, not anyone who is speaking with authority ;)
  - freeflight 9y ago
    > Kojima Productions, pre-Death Stranding, was only a subsidiary under Konami. One would assume that if Kojima is already influential enough to get a whole studio, even named after himself, he might as well ensure, at least partial, ownership of the properties created by that studio. These contract negotiations, for the studio's original formation, must have been a really awkward process.
    - spondyl 9y ago
      On a side note, I was hoping to look up the subsidiary under the Japanese companies register out of curiosity but unfortunately they don't provide free and/or unregistered search like the one here in my country. They also don't run their service on weekends meaning they quite literally shut down registration and other functions. I feel like that defeats the entire purpose of having a website!
- minimaxir 9y ago
  Konami is using the Fox Engine in the upcoming Metal Gear Survive.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
coolspot 9y ago
After I played MGSV first time, I was stunned by it's graphics. Everything is so perfect: materials, lighting, camera movement, character animation. Looking forward for next Kojima's game - Death Stranding.
- twiceaday 9y ago
  Kojima was forced out of his old company and lost access to the engine described here. Death Stranding will be using the game engine from Horizon: Zero Dawn.
  - jsheard 9y ago
    That said, the Horizon engine is solid and the Death Stranding visuals we've seen so far look incredible. Just look at this rendition of Mads Mikkelsen: https://youtu.be/H2Hy96sOnq8?t=200 https://youtu.be/H2Hy96sOnq8?t=200
    - Cyph0n 9y ago
      That trailer is pure perfection...
    - Asooka 9y ago
      This might be OT but I just noticed - the baby doll's eye is blinking just like those mechanical light arms are blinking in the new trailer.
- speps 9y ago
  > Looking forward for next Kojima's game - Death Stranding Because one person makes a game... sorry it's my pet peeve, a game is made by a team not a single name.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    Sorry but kojima seems to know how to push the enveloppe in many levels. He surely relies on mad skilled devs but it's not enough.
CryoLogic 9y ago
Not only was MGSV5 great graphically, it also was very performant. I always wondered if they where using rendering tricks like the ones known in Just Cause (loading in 2d assets when very far away and than swapping them with 3d assets as you get close) or similar.
- hcarvalhoalves 9y ago
  AFAIK, it runs stable @ 60fps on the standard PS4, with quality similar to PC (Xbox One version drops a few of the effects). Very impressive.
  - kristofferR 9y ago
    Don't forget that the same game also ran beautifully on the PS3. Not 60fps, but fluid and pleasant.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      yes it scales down really well.
    - hifigi 9y ago
      Yes, to be sure, but seeing the difference between PS3 and PS4 is a sea change. It doesn’t really run “beautifully” on a PS3...It runs on a PS3. It functionally works as a different game. I watched an ex play through the whole game on PS3 (her choice) and there were many aspects of her playthrough that were not tied to her platform, but were hindered by being on the PS3
- pkaye 9y ago
  The 2d assets when very far away is called billboarding.
  - jsheard 9y ago
    Billboarding is more general than that, it refers to any 2D sprite that always faces the camera. It's often used at close range for things like particles and grass as well. Billboards that are used as substitutes for 3D models at long distances are more specifically called "imposters".
agumonkey 9y ago
Even though I knew most of this, I'm still surprised how many layers are rendered every frame
- mjb 9y ago
  Yeah, it's absolutely mind blowing. My last involvement with graphics programming was the 90s demoscene, and fill-rate was a massive constraint on doing cool things. Doing the amount of math these modern engines do per frame, let alone multiple times per pixel, would have been unimaginable. It's amazing and cool how much GPUs have changed all that, and the techniques are so different and constrained in such different ways.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    I also like how if you remove most of the passes you end up with virtua fighter
- Impossible 9y ago
  This is pretty standard in AAA games, if you look at some of his previous breakdowns there are a similar amount of passes. What was surprising to me was how much work was done post tonemapping and gamma correction.
michaelsbradley 9y ago
Slightly off topic, but hopefully a fun anecdote: Sometime in the second half of 1988 — I was 11 or 12 years old at the time — I was determined to beat the original Metal Gear (North American NES version[+]). I got up one Saturday morning, played straight through to the early afternoon; I had the NES hooked to a little 10-inch color CRT in my bedroom. I don't remember writing down any save-point passcodes (if there even were any, memory is hazy; or maybe I was down to my last re-spawn despite save point), and I don't recall having gotten too far in previous attempts... challenging game! It was apparent to me that I was reaching the final stage of the game, big boss ahead. My kid brother had been hovering around for hours, and I declared my bedroom off-limits until victory or defeat was certain. All of a sudden, my brother comes bouncing in and says, "Here, have a jolly rancher!" — which was appreciated momentarily, it was even watermelon flavor, which (God knows why) I savored for some reason — and then granny passed the hard candy in my direction. It ricocheted off the back of my chair and then....... struck the reset button on the NES!!! All was lost, and I was too devastated to pursue him downstairs in anger. About 6 weeks later, I finally beat the game. [+] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJPVTylzt80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJPVTylzt80
frik 9y ago
Great blog post. Maybe he will post another article about MGSV5 open world rendering, as it's one of the highlights of the Fox engine. Anyway RAGE engine from Rockstar (GTA IV+V, RDR 1+2) is probably one of the most advanced engines, so much details in rendering. http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/11/02/gta-v-graphics-study-part-3/ http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/11/02/gta-v-graphic... A detailed comparison of open world game engines would be interesting with focus on LOD, streaming and rendering techniques. * RAGE (GTA5/RDR2) * AnvilNext (AC:O, GR:Widelands) * Frostbite3 (NfS:Payback, SW:Battlefront2) * Just Cause 3 * Watch Dogs 2 * Mafia 2/3 * Dunia (Far Cry 4/5) * Decima (Horizon Zero Dawn) * Fox (MGSV) * REDengine (Witcher 3) * Minecraft (Java + new C++ Bedrock ed) * Genome (Elex) * CryEngine/Lumberyard * Unity * Unreal 4 (PUBG) It's impressive how such game engines provide seamless high speed travel with vehicles (cars, airplanes) in an open world environment.

244 points by jsheard 9y ago

Does anybody know who actually owns Fox Engine at this point? Afaik it was Kojima Productions who created the engine, but Kojima and Konami split. Yet the Fox Engine wiki lists Metal Gear Survive as the only upcoming Fox Engine game, not Death Stranding. Death Stranding's wiki says it uses the Decima game engine. That, in turn, was developed by Guerilla Games and Kojima Productions. So from that situation, I guess it's Konami who now owns the Fox Engine? I wonder how that ended up happening, Kojima's own studio developing an engine and then he doesn't even get to keep it.

ekianjo 9y ago
They developed it while they were owned by Konami, so yeah its pretty natural it falls under the ownership of Konami by contract.
spondyl 9y ago
Kojima Productions, pre-Death Stranding, was only a subsidiary under Konami. As I understand, its purpose was to relieve Kojima of business responsibilities that a traditional executive would have. I would assume it was only a studio on paper and all assets and IP were still retained by Konami. I didn't realise until now but Fox Engine has also been used in the yearly PES Soccer games as well! After Kojima left, he reformed the studio as an actual independent company which is backed and funded by Sony with complete creative freedom. He toured studios around the world and decided to work with Guerilla Games, who built Decima for their title Horizon: Zero Dawn. They're simply using the engine and collaborating with Guerilla to make tweaks and modifications to suit their title. I believe it's not unlike the working relationship that Insomniac and Naughty Dog had in the PS2 days, where they would share tech and insights. So yeah, tldr: Fox Engine was always owned by Kojima. Kojima Productions was once a subsidiary and is now an independent entity. KojiProd is essentially borrowing Guerilla Games Decima Engine rather than building one from scratch. P.S. I'm just a fan, not anyone who is speaking with authority ;)
- freeflight 9y ago
  > Kojima Productions, pre-Death Stranding, was only a subsidiary under Konami. One would assume that if Kojima is already influential enough to get a whole studio, even named after himself, he might as well ensure, at least partial, ownership of the properties created by that studio. These contract negotiations, for the studio's original formation, must have been a really awkward process.
  - spondyl 9y ago
    On a side note, I was hoping to look up the subsidiary under the Japanese companies register out of curiosity but unfortunately they don't provide free and/or unregistered search like the one here in my country. They also don't run their service on weekends meaning they quite literally shut down registration and other functions. I feel like that defeats the entire purpose of having a website!
minimaxir 9y ago
Konami is using the Fox Engine in the upcoming Metal Gear Survive.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

coolspot 9y ago

After I played MGSV first time, I was stunned by it's graphics. Everything is so perfect: materials, lighting, camera movement, character animation. Looking forward for next Kojima's game - Death Stranding.

twiceaday 9y ago
Kojima was forced out of his old company and lost access to the engine described here. Death Stranding will be using the game engine from Horizon: Zero Dawn.
- jsheard 9y ago
  That said, the Horizon engine is solid and the Death Stranding visuals we've seen so far look incredible. Just look at this rendition of Mads Mikkelsen: https://youtu.be/H2Hy96sOnq8?t=200 https://youtu.be/H2Hy96sOnq8?t=200
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    That trailer is pure perfection...
  - Asooka 9y ago
    This might be OT but I just noticed - the baby doll's eye is blinking just like those mechanical light arms are blinking in the new trailer.
speps 9y ago
> Looking forward for next Kojima's game - Death Stranding Because one person makes a game... sorry it's my pet peeve, a game is made by a team not a single name.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  Sorry but kojima seems to know how to push the enveloppe in many levels. He surely relies on mad skilled devs but it's not enough.

CryoLogic 9y ago

Not only was MGSV5 great graphically, it also was very performant. I always wondered if they where using rendering tricks like the ones known in Just Cause (loading in 2d assets when very far away and than swapping them with 3d assets as you get close) or similar.

hcarvalhoalves 9y ago
AFAIK, it runs stable @ 60fps on the standard PS4, with quality similar to PC (Xbox One version drops a few of the effects). Very impressive.
- kristofferR 9y ago
  Don't forget that the same game also ran beautifully on the PS3. Not 60fps, but fluid and pleasant.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    yes it scales down really well.
  - hifigi 9y ago
    Yes, to be sure, but seeing the difference between PS3 and PS4 is a sea change. It doesn’t really run “beautifully” on a PS3...It runs on a PS3. It functionally works as a different game. I watched an ex play through the whole game on PS3 (her choice) and there were many aspects of her playthrough that were not tied to her platform, but were hindered by being on the PS3
pkaye 9y ago
The 2d assets when very far away is called billboarding.
- jsheard 9y ago
  Billboarding is more general than that, it refers to any 2D sprite that always faces the camera. It's often used at close range for things like particles and grass as well. Billboards that are used as substitutes for 3D models at long distances are more specifically called "imposters".

agumonkey 9y ago

Even though I knew most of this, I'm still surprised how many layers are rendered every frame

mjb 9y ago
Yeah, it's absolutely mind blowing. My last involvement with graphics programming was the 90s demoscene, and fill-rate was a massive constraint on doing cool things. Doing the amount of math these modern engines do per frame, let alone multiple times per pixel, would have been unimaginable. It's amazing and cool how much GPUs have changed all that, and the techniques are so different and constrained in such different ways.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  I also like how if you remove most of the passes you end up with virtua fighter
Impossible 9y ago
This is pretty standard in AAA games, if you look at some of his previous breakdowns there are a similar amount of passes. What was surprising to me was how much work was done post tonemapping and gamma correction.

michaelsbradley 9y ago

Slightly off topic, but hopefully a fun anecdote: Sometime in the second half of 1988 — I was 11 or 12 years old at the time — I was determined to beat the original Metal Gear (North American NES version[+]). I got up one Saturday morning, played straight through to the early afternoon; I had the NES hooked to a little 10-inch color CRT in my bedroom. I don't remember writing down any save-point passcodes (if there even were any, memory is hazy; or maybe I was down to my last re-spawn despite save point), and I don't recall having gotten too far in previous attempts... challenging game! It was apparent to me that I was reaching the final stage of the game, big boss ahead. My kid brother had been hovering around for hours, and I declared my bedroom off-limits until victory or defeat was certain. All of a sudden, my brother comes bouncing in and says, "Here, have a jolly rancher!" — which was appreciated momentarily, it was even watermelon flavor, which (God knows why) I savored for some reason — and then granny passed the hard candy in my direction. It ricocheted off the back of my chair and then....... struck the reset button on the NES!!! All was lost, and I was too devastated to pursue him downstairs in anger. About 6 weeks later, I finally beat the game. [+] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJPVTylzt80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJPVTylzt80

frik 9y ago

Great blog post. Maybe he will post another article about MGSV5 open world rendering, as it's one of the highlights of the Fox engine. Anyway RAGE engine from Rockstar (GTA IV+V, RDR 1+2) is probably one of the most advanced engines, so much details in rendering. http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/11/02/gta-v-graphics-study-part-3/ http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/11/02/gta-v-graphic... A detailed comparison of open world game engines would be interesting with focus on LOD, streaming and rendering techniques. * RAGE (GTA5/RDR2) * AnvilNext (AC:O, GR:Widelands) * Frostbite3 (NfS:Payback, SW:Battlefront2) * Just Cause 3 * Watch Dogs 2 * Mafia 2/3 * Dunia (Far Cry 4/5) * Decima (Horizon Zero Dawn) * Fox (MGSV) * REDengine (Witcher 3) * Minecraft (Java + new C++ Bedrock ed) * Genome (Elex) * CryEngine/Lumberyard * Unity * Unreal 4 (PUBG) It's impressive how such game engines provide seamless high speed travel with vehicles (cars, airplanes) in an open world environment.