Following the PlayStation 4 Pro’s unveiling yesterday, developers from several studios talked about the new console, 4K and high dynamic range (HDR). Notably, Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games both agreed that HDR is a “real step forward.”
In an interview following the meeting, Insomniac’s Al Hastings said that 4K and HDR offer “stunning” details. With reference to the studio’s Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank games, he explained:
For our Spider-Man project we’re really working as hard as we can to build a really rich, detailed version of New York City and the amount of detail and improved fidelity you can get on a 4K display – especially a 4K display that has HDR – is pretty stunning. It’s a real step forward. That’s what we’re most excited about.
But at the same time, I’m going back and changing our last Ratchet & Clank to also supporting HDR and 4K output and, so far, what I’ve found is because it wasn’t authored with 4K in mind the addition of HDR… has a lot more punch than the improved resolution.
Naughty Dog’s Christian Gyrling agreed that HDR is “really the future,” adding that the studio is excited to allow its artists to make use of the colors.
I mean, for a long time now they’ve wanted to show these colors but we’ve had to do things like tone mapping and various other things. The tone mapping is giving an artistic feel but it also artificially brings down all the contrast to what’s acceptable on current TVs. All of us, we’re working hard to make this most believable image, representing the world as fine as we can detail-wise, but the groundedness is lost a little bit when you suddenly have to crunch down your colors to something they weren’t intended to be.
Opening that up now means that those artists now have a couple of more tools in their arsenal to say, ‘You know, I really love opening up the range here and showing all the brights and all the darks at the same time, and I don’t have compromise.’ You hear it every day at work now, and we’re really excited to push the patches for Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us on November 10, and we’re pushing it for the standard PS4 as well.
For more on PS4 Pro, check out our previous coverage.
[Source: IGN]
