I’m already so intrigued by Horizon: Zero Dawn. I probably shouldn’t be this excited by a game that is still so far away, but I just can’t help it. It’s so much more than robot dinosaurs, and really, what could be more than robot dinosaurs. But I’m intrigued by the world being created and I want to know everything I can about Aloy and her story. But I might just have lie on the grass somewhere and stare at the sky.
Here is a new video of volumetric clouds with time lapse in Horizon. I normally wouldn’t care about this, but it’s just so stunningly gorgeous, I had to watch the whole thing:
And over on the Guerrilla Games site they explain what we’re seeing:
Real-time volumetric clouds in games usually pay for fast performance with a reduction in quality. The most successful approaches are limited to low altitude fluffy and translucent stratus-type clouds. For Horizon Zero Dawn, Guerrilla need a solution that can fill a sky with evolving and realistic results that closely match highly detailed reference images which represent high altitude cirrus clouds and all of the major low level cloud types, including thick billowy cumulus clouds. These clouds need to light correctly according to the time of day and other cloud-specific lighting effects. Additionally, we are targeting GPU performance of 2ms. Our solution is a volumetric cloud shader which handles the aspects of modeling, animation and lighting logically without sacrificing quality or draw time. Special emphasis will be placed on our solutions for direct-ability of cloud shapes and formations as well as on our lighting model and optimizations.
I will admit, much of that went over my head, but I love the shapes of the clouds and the way the lighting works to make it all look so real. It’s truly incredible and already makes the world seem so much more alive. If this is the sort of attention being given to the sky, just think of what they’re doing for the world. I’m sort of in awe already and I just can’t wait to see more.
Last Updated: August 25, 2015
Pieter Kruger
August 25, 2015 at 20:56
Those cloudz are lies! ????
Jonah Cash
August 26, 2015 at 07:37
Wrong article bud, this is a PS4 game… 🙂
Mabenito
August 26, 2015 at 11:53
XD..
Pieter Kruger
August 28, 2015 at 00:59
Have you seen the amazing clouds in World Of Tanks? Oh wait, PS4 LOL!
Jonah Cash
August 28, 2015 at 08:01
The clouds is a lie bud, we here in Africa will be able to use them for nothing more than rain, lightning and thunder for quite a few more years yet…
Hammersteyn
August 26, 2015 at 07:56
Bwahahaha! Nice!
Nathaniel
August 25, 2015 at 22:52
Pretty awesome!
Stosta
August 26, 2015 at 07:26
When I was 12 and Half-Life was released, I remember having a chat with my mate about how it could be possible for graphics to get any better, and would they ever look as good as RL. We agreed that at some stage they would be better than RL, because there would be particle effects and fireballs.
Jonah Cash
August 26, 2015 at 07:37
Those are some amazing clouds. That looks like the real McCoy!
Hammersteyn
August 26, 2015 at 07:56
There’s always a full moon. 0/10!
Ranting Raptor
August 26, 2015 at 08:30
Those are some smexy clouds
ElimiNathan
August 26, 2015 at 09:14
Zoe : “Don’t know what nimbus or cumulus clouds are, neither do I care for shaders, but hey I like the shapes they make!” 😀
HairyEwok
August 26, 2015 at 12:33
So if a PS4 has that power then surely a PC would let it look like your actually outside feeling the suns heat on you.
Kikmi
August 26, 2015 at 15:09
Thats a lot of meteorology right there!