How can Epic buying out Quixel help ACC?

Quixel have a huge library of photogrammetry assets and they are available for UE4 games for free if developers are using UE4!
How can Kunos use this massive library of near visually perfect assets in ACC?

 

Nah, I don't think they would spend time in changing or adding 3D assets. Also, it might impact performance, so no.
But maybe for AC3 or their next thing. Maybe when a RTX 4080 Ti exists and there's a new title in development, we can have the better assets, the ray tracing and all. Would be so nice!

 

It could definitely improve the visuals even further, no doubt. It's got potential to improve their workflow too. But obviously they've already built everything and I don't believe rebuilding that is where their priorities should be set - optimising what's there would be where I would spend time on, since Kunos just about manages to get the game to run as is. If the game ran better (and no matter what some imply I'm of the opinion it definitely can run better) people would be happier with what's there. Especially those using VR.

 

If anything Megascans would be more attractive with their new pricing. I think I heard Kunos longing to develop their own engine/tools again after this UE4 adventure, so chances are they won't capitalize much on the Megascans-Epic relationship.

 

The quality of megascans assets is incredible, but I don't think there's much stuff that would make a significant difference to a circuit-based racing sim.

 

I wonder about that. I'm a lay person but it seemed to me like they put a lot of work into the UE engine which does kind of put them at an advantage in that they understand an industry standard better than their competitors. There are probably advantages to sticking with UE. But if it's not suitable for sims, it's not suitable. Kunos know best.

I would have concerns that their graphics engine would be a step down from what can be done by UE.

Although, maybe their time with UE has shown them some tricks that they can transfer over to their own engine, that they wouldn't have known about without using UE.

 

You say that and yet look how ACC looks compared to previous "gen" racing games like AC or rF2. Does the increased detail of the assets really make no difference? I think not.

Obviously graphics aren't the most important part of a racing sim. But there's definitely cases where I see low poly models and low-res textures still in ACC, so you do sometimes notice it and that can take you out of the experience.

 

I learned about photogrammetry first in this wonderful (and visually most beautiful) game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and then again the Spa track of Raceroom uses it in parts, too. Yes, it looks awesome in 2D. When you are aware of it. In Ethan Carter, you were aware, at Spa you hardly take notice, because the action is too fast-paced, you do not hang around in a place for long enough to admire it, but you want to hush by as fast as you can, right? So I wonder whether it is worth it in a racing game, because it comes at a hardware cost, no doubt.

Also, I am not convinced that as a VR player I want a racing game again being done with U4E, there are deficits in ACC that seem to be linked to the engine that exist until today and that I do not have in AC1 or RR.

For a new AC franchise, better give priority to a completely different, maybe even in-house-made engine.

Talking from a VR point of view.

 

Do you think new graphics cards will have the power to eliminate these problems of VR and UE4? If we have enough processing power ACC would be fine in VR!

 

I was referring to the type of assets rather than the detail. Megascans overwhelmingly caters towards organic or rough looking assets - the type which are very difficult to do without photogrammetry. Having looked through the library I don't think there are many examples which would *significantly* benefit ACC.

New GPUs will be accompanied by new VR headsets, so unless software development gets ahead of hardware we'll still have the same problems.

 

I am no coder or technical expert. I did not mean performance issues anyway. My VR experience in ACC is smooth and I can and will not complain about the frames, they are fine, but there are graphics artifacts that I understand (by reading) to be problems deriving not from performance deficits of the hardware, but being implications of the graphics engine. If that is so, more powerful hardware alone will not change that. Only another graphics engine - or altering the existing one, which would be Epic's job, not Kunos'.

Better hardware will be needed when VR headsets show up with higher resolution.

 

Plenty of track detail that's covered by exactly that. From things like ground textures to concrete barriers.