With the release of inFAMOUS: Second Son in just six days, Sucker Punch is dropping some more information about the tech powering the game. Tech Art lead Jason Connell mentioned on Twitter that the game uses Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing T2x to remove the hated jaggies from the edges of the title’s gorgeous models:
If I’m not mistaken it’s SMAA T2x. Right @anji_nl ?
Graphics Programmer Matthijs De Smedt added that the team has done a few modifications of its own to the tech. For the sake of comparison, Ryse: Son of Rome used the slightly less advanced SMAA 1x.
At the bottom of the post you can see a chart comparing performance of the various anti-aliasing method at different resolutions and a screenshot comparison between no anti-aliasing and SMAA T2x courtesy of NeoGAF user Wishmaster92.
We also learn that yesterday’s screenshots showcasing different times of day were captured directly on PS4 for a rather interesting reason:
Yes. Our tool chain for making time of days is very reliant on editing in-game ON the PS4.
Finally, Connell mentioned on Facebook that the “Orbital Drop” power uses a rather enormous amount of particles.
The rain alone was 25,000! I’m not sure exactly but it’s a LOT for that particular power!
For reference, the Orbital Drop power is smoke’s Karma bomb, that we have seen at the end of the E3 trailer.
It’s hard not to be impressed, and it’s quite interesting to see the effect SMAA T2X on the game. It definitely achieves great results in eliminating overly visible aliasing, but it grants much better performance than the more traditional MSAA (while it looks a lot better than the rather cheap FXAA). I can definitely see the technique being used more and more as the generation progresses, considering its balance between results and performance.
