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Nuvendil on 06 March 2016
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curl-6 said:
Nuvendil said:

Well, I'm not one to disappoint so yeah, I'll say it:  the *technical* upgrade is comparable, it's just the visual difference is less consistently apparent.  Wind Waker got lighting, yes.  However, the texture resolution is not nearly as high as TPHD cause it doesn't need to be.  Also, not a single mesh of WWHD was touched and they remain very very low in poly counts even in areas where upgrades were obviously possible.  TPHD on the other hand has seen geometry enhancement throughout every single interior including dungeons.  The only area where WWHD trumps TPHD is lighting.  And that is it.  Textures are crisper but not nearly as good on a technical level, geometry was untouched.  The main reason the visual upgrade is not as significant is the art style of WWHD, which means low geometry and simplistic textures can skate, freeing resources for the lighting improvements.  Just saying, the idea WWHD is a huge, massive overhaul and TPHD is a cheap, splapdash effort is just that: a myth.  Neither is a massive overhaul, neither is slapdash.

I didn't say TPHD was slapdash. It's not. But while its textures and screen res see a big bump, geometry and shadowing tweaks are very minor. 

WWHD on the other hand incorporates a host of new techniques that TPHD doesn't, from HDR lighting to global illumination, ambient occlusion to anisotropic filtering. It's lighting, shadowing, shaders and effects are completely redone in addition to the expected texture and screen resolution boosts.

*shrugs*.  I suppose that's true.  It would be an interesting thing to be able to peek behind the curtain and see what ate up more power, the lighting and shaders or the increase in geometry and significantly higher res textures.  And while I can't be sure (camera angle makes it hard to tell), I think there may be some anisotropic filtering in TPHD.  Not a very strong setting of such if so though.  I will say the shadows in WWHD, while very good, don't draw very far.  But I guess another thing is that the WWHD art style cuts both ways as it also means a remaster can't effect it's looks but so much.  To me, I find both to be equally pleasing end results.  Of course part of that also comes down to TPHD benefiting from cleaning up the (IMHO) mistakes of 6-7th gen transition graphics that plagued TP originally.  The washed out, hazy, brown look with excessive bloom that was inaccurate and bled over everything.  Now it's got far more color and vibrancy while still maintaining an earthy color palette all its own.  Some defend the muddiness of the original as part of the Twilight theme of things but I think the adjusted color and lighting temperature helps create a more pleasing and intense contrast between the areas enveloped in Twilight and those in the Light.  So really, it's an enhancement to the atmosphere IMO.  It's an interesting bag of improvements.  Sometimes it looks almost late seventh gen, sometimes like a very early seventh gen.  The aggregate is probably mid seventh gen.  

 

Also, I am enjoying the game greatly by the way.  It's a slower, more methodicapace but years of playing TES games without fast travel and my love of Total War has made me a pretty patient gamer :P.