New features of the targem engine 2.0: global illumination in crossout “supercharged” update

In the Crossout “Supercharged” update, which will be released on October 25, 2022, a significant improvement will appear in our render. We have added to the lighting model the calculation of indirect, or in other words — Global Illumination.

Up to this point, simplified lighting algorithms from the environment were used in our render. They accurately took into account direct light from light sources, and indirect light was modeled approximately using a pre-calculated diffuse cubemap on the level. Thanks to the refinement and implementation of the “Scalable Global illumination” technology from the Dagor Engine, which is used by our publisher Gaijin Entertainment, it has become possible to simulate indirect lighting much more accurately.

Now the indirect propagation of light is simulated taking into account the surrounding geometry, so that in addition to direct light, reflected and scattered light from various surfaces and extended light sources (sky, surfaces that emit and reflect light, shading from massive objects and buildings, etc.) will appear. Such an improvement noticeably improves the quality of the image in poorly lit and completely shadow-covered areas — it will become more voluminous and textured, and reflected incident light (reflex) from surrounding objects will also appear.

Contact shadows and local reflections

In addition to updating the global illumination system, the mechanism for rendering shadows and reflections was also improved, and SSCS (Screen Space Contact Shadows) and SSLR (Screen Space Local Reflections) techniques were implemented. Both effects work according to similar principles — we launch a ray for each pixel in the screen space and try to find its intersection with objects in the frame, which are described by the “depth” of the scene. And, as a result, It turns into some kind of ray tracing!

In the case of contact shadows, the ray is launched in the direction of the light source for a very short distance near the camera, and for many tens of meters on the horizon. This allows to draw shadows for small objects near the observer (such as stones, grass, etc.) and for giant mountains and rocks in the distance, complementing and improving the classic shadow rendering technique, as well as saving computer resources (for example, we don’t need to prepare additional information on the CPU because the data about the depth of the scene is enough).

With updated local reflections, we replaced the previously used SSPR technique, which required additional calculations on the CPU, and also had a number of limitations, such as: the number of reflective surfaces on the screen, the ability to draw reflections only on plain surfaces, as well as not entirely true reflections for water surfaces. The new SLR technique is completely devoid of these disadvantages, and now you can draw honest reflections for all types of surfaces, in any configurations! The algorithm repeats the logic of contact shadows, but this time we let a long ray in the direction of the intended reflection.

Both techniques work only in conjunction with MSAA temporal anti-aliasing, or the most advanced types of smoothing, such as NVidia DLSS or AMD FSR 2.0. This is due to the technical nuances of the implementation of techniques that require accumulating the result of the algorithms for several frames to achieve the highest quality and optimal performance. Both technologies fill the picture with lots of details, complementing the work of the updated Global illumination system.

Motion blur and glare

In update 0.14.0, the image post-processing stage was improved, and new effects were added. They simulate the imperfection of photo and video equipment, bringing the final image closer to a realistic one with a small expenditure of computer resources.

The effect of Motion blur appeared on the battlefields of Crossout. It is designed to make the scene more dynamic and make the gameplay smoother and more enjoyable. We have carefully calibrated the effect to add cinematography and convey the feeling of speed in the best way, while not overshadowing the gaming experience in battles. The player will be able to independently adjust the blur intensity in the graphics settings.

In addition, the Lens Flare effect was added to the game — glare, simulating the refraction of light rays in the camera lens. This effect is used for a more natural display of bright light sources, creating complex-shaped glare that is characteristic of the lenses of any optical camera. Vignetting also allows you to reproduce the effect of shading from the camera aperture along the edges of the image, which adds expressiveness to the frame, giving it an artistic look and placing light accents.

The Bloom effect has been completely reworked. Previously, we used a simple technique of scaling the scene image using contrast — this gave a very approximate result of low quality and low resolution, in most cases the bloom effect was generally invisible. Now the image is being prepared taking into account the camera exposure, and then several stages of Gaussian blur are applied with varying degrees of importance. Thanks to careful optimization and the use of modern techniques, we get very cinematic highlights of different textures (from micro-glare of wet surfaces to bright flashes from explosions) for about the same performance cost. You may notice how armored cars in the rays of the sun now give pleasant photorealistic highlights from chrome and painted vehicle parts.

That’s all for today. Next week we plan to release one more part of the devblog which will be devoted to the major audio visual update for Crossout. Stay tuned!

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I wonder if this is the reason why the past 3 months this game has been horrid to play, and it’s been horrible to play far before the supposed DDOS attack if there was one, though after the DDOS for a few weeks it was great now it’s back to being horrid to play, maybe someone did an oopsie and caused all these issues?

But I am happy to see these improvements but I hope it comes with general maintenance, bug fixes, and server upkeep as you can have the best-looking game in the world, but it means nothing if nobody can play it cause it’s choppy/horrid

Also if you watch the video it shows a part of the environment being destroyed, I hope that isn’t something they padded the video with and is actually coming to the game!

After all none of these changes are guaranteed to make it in the game as the devs love to say!

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I hope they don’t make this game too hard to run on not that great computers, I already run it on very low graphic settings just to be able to play, not all of us has or can afford a beefy pc

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Is that a destructible bridge (please)?

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If it comes to Ps4 I can say RIP PS4

I hope this also means new fire puddle and explosion animations. I feel like those could be greatly improved.
Between this and the Cadillac parts, I’m very excited about the update!

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I’m seriously hoping the new cabin and module aren’t locked behind a battle pass at say, level 70. I will cry. Loudly.

Make it a pack and take my money. Please.

this proves this game is not die’n…it’s tryin…
so now is the time to Unleash the New Maps.winter,spring,fall,we have enough summer :crazy_face:

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I feel the opposite: I have yet to buy a pack and would prefer to get it in a battlepass. But I want that grill, cabin, fins and fenders enough to break my no-pack rule.

Will ps4 even get this?

I mean they updated fire animation about four months ago. I’m not sure if this update will improve it further or not. I’m not even sure most of these upgrades will even be given to ps4 players like myself.

Lol to potato PCs

Series X Master Race :rofl:

I’m surprised people still react like that, I could understand it if the developers invested all the money earned in the game, unfortunately after 5 years we are still playing on war thunder backup servers and the game is working rly bad.

The developers are surely satisfied with people like you who pay for nothing :love_you_gesture:

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It’s all perspective. There was a time where I would get disconnected from CW sessions, and oddly enough not in PvP mind you, one out of 4 games on average. Back then the meta was extremely top heavy, with basically only Typhoons and Firedogs dominating the lineup. That was a toxic and frustrating time to play, and I took one of my extended breaks because of it. Since then the meta has been branched out, connections more stable (minus the recent DDoS attacks or w.e it was), and content is pretty consistently coming out. This is still a 1 of 1 game with no direct competitors for better or worse (Legos + Twisted Metal is my description). So if there are improvements and more balance than there were years ago, I consider it progress and worthy of my support.

This is the first pack I’ve ever been this absolutely enthralled with, as are others, and I make no bones about wanting to have it and being willing to pay for it.

I respect your opinion on the game. But I disagree with it for now. The game is in a good state imo and seems like it is trending upwards. I’ll support it until I feel differently.

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I think so too. Low player population is probably their biggest issue effecting game-play, IMO (struggling matchmaker, long queues), but over all the game looks great and plays…intermittently well. It does have issues, but
there isn’t anything else like it, and after playing it, I find it hard to want to play anything else. It makes other shooters seem way too boring and one-dimensional by comparison, I think.

IMO, it’s the best game system out there, but they seem prone to screwing it up periodically. They appear disorganized and unprepared often. I bet they don’t have any idea what they will be doing next year at this time, and I don’t know how a company can be run without some kind of yearly planning, or outline. I don’t think they plan that far out, but I think they should, if they aren’t.


They aren’t spending that money on shoes apparently. What does happen to all the money, I wonder? Does Gaijin just devour it somehow? It doesn’t look like these guys at Targem are getting paid a lot. I’d like to see what they drive to work (I bet it’s ugly). Maybe they take the bus, IDK. They better get their schit together though, because I don’t think that crowd would make for good manual labor. Jesus…black socks and sandals? Those sure are are nerds, but nerds with a real cool vision, maybe my favorite nerds, and are nerds who deserve better…or do they need a swift kick in the arse to help them to realize their potential? IDK.

It seems like this game should be less peripheral and more main-stream than it is. Maybe the general public is just too stupid to grasp this game. Covid-19 showed us all (that were paying attention) that people are indeed pretty stupid, generally, and the gross population globally is borderline retarded. Is it just too complicated?

So, maybe that is another argument for developing Adventure Mode into a place where kids can simply drive around, shoot bots, explore, and run errands for Ivy (a simplified version of Crossout), but there is virtually nothing interesting going on there. They could do so very much more with that mode, and should, IMO.

I think they should rework faction builds into functional builds that players can actually use, and are fun to look at and drive around. They currently are not that at all, nor can the new guy even build half that stuff because they won’t have the equipment they need. Factions should guide the beginner through all the necessary steps to earn the parts to build those cars, but they don’t, and why would they even want to? Those cars stink, but they sure don’t have too, and there is no reason they couldn’t be reworked to actually be functional. All they need is a Trucker and some Borers for Christ’s sake, but that isn’t even in there.

New players need some proper examples of what actually works in this game. If they had that, maybe they wouldn’t just quit so often. How gddmn hard would it be to just come up with some faction builds that actually function in this universe to replace the garbage they have in the faction garages currently? It’s basically them just playing their own phking game until it works…I digress. Point is, the lobby at the entrance of this game sucks. This game caters to whales way too much, and people who don’t have all that crap in their inventory are getting pwnd and just leaving.

They need to focus more on beginners. They need more new players, and features for the white and blue level players to enjoy. This game can’t be all about Clan Wars, sideways Hovers, Porcupines, Missiles, and mine layers…unless you start them out with that kind of crap. How about Common Tank tracks, or Rare flamethrowers, eh? Starting kids out with those phcked up (extremely difficult to aim) rare missiles and rockets is not fun. If any group of players could use homing missiles and drones, it’s them, the beginners, not the veterans. Make the gddmn veterans and whales have to aim their weapons to win.

Their common cabs suck too (way too slow), and are mostly fugly. Give aces some cool cars, cool weapons, and a cool place to drive around an blow stuff up (like what Adventure Mode could be) and I bet this game would have better numbers, and then maybe the developers could buy some decent shoes…the office looks nice though.

The game needs to be reworked at the beginner level, IMO. They focus way too much on end game BS, and high PS game-play, I think.

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thats the CEO :rofl:
i was wondering why only 1 girl is in the photo…then i seen the cute girl on the left side in the purple shirt :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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oh, god…that is funny. This could explain a lot. I’d love to hear what he has to say for himself, but my expectations aren’t very high. Nerds are an odd lot though, and I’d be willing to at least give him a chance to use his words to express himself. His outfit screams lazy and oblivious, but like I said, nerds…they can be sort of savant like that.

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DudeWTF-01
That is probably the kind of nerd you do not phk with right there.

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:joy:

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I’m a noob and I agree wholeheartedly with your views in general and on a better Adventure mode. I’d like to build a few cars and just run around and shoot stuff - maybe a few challenges, etc. We, beginners, are def lost in the dust
with minimal help getting started. And that Market - what a convoluted mess! I think playing chess would be easer!

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