We've all been pretty excited about Cyberpunk 2077 and spoke about it at length, from what was shown in the gameplay video today and of course the announcement of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the new animé made by Studio TRIGGER in partnership with CD Projekt Red and Netflix. I was also very excited thanks to the preview I was able to do during Gamescom last year.
What wasn't really talked about, but was clearly on display during today's Night City Wire is some of the tech that the game will support. This is where NVIDIA steps in, revealing some of the features to be found within what was shown today. Specifically, the game will use ray tracing and will support NVIDIA DLSS 2.0.
Here are some of the ray-traced features that you can expect to find in Cyberpunk 2077 at launch:
- Ray-traced ambient occlusion - Ambient occlusion is a shading and rendering technique used to calculate how exposed each point in a scene is to ambient lighting. The result is a diffuse shading effect that darkens enclosed and sheltered areas and enhances the rendered image's overall tone. In Cyberpunk 2077, ray-traced ambient occlusion additionally can be used with local lights to approximate local shadowing effects where shadows are missing.
- Ray-traced diffuse illumination - This technique is used to capture sky radiance as well as emissive lighting from various surfaces, which is difficult to achieve with traditional rendering techniques.
- Ray-traced reflections - In Cyberpunk 2077, ray-traced reflections are used on all surfaces and can trace ranges for up to several kilometers. They are present on both opaque and transparent objects to simulate the way light reflects from glossy and metal surfaces by tracing a single bounce of reflection rays against the scene. This includes smooth natural mirrors like window glass, but also rougher surfaces like brushed metal. Unlike screen space techniques which can only reflect what’s on screen, ray-traced reflections incorporate the entire scene around the character, and can accurately represent objects outside the camera view or facing away from the camera.
- Ray-traced shadows - Cyberpunk 2077 preview supports directional shadows from the sun and the moon. These shadows aim to be physically accurate and even account for light scattering from clouds. Shadows may be enhanced in the final release to support other types of light sources where it is needed.
Everything will be supported when Cyberpunk 2077 launches on the 19th of November, which is a big positive. Jason Paul, vice president of GeForce platform marketing at NVIDIA had this to say:
Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most anticipated games of all-time. Combined with CD PROJEKT RED’s incredible story-telling and stunning artistry, RTX-powered ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 help to make Cyberpunk 2077 a ‘must-play’ game of 2020.
If you want to check out the trailer and the Night City Wire feature, check out our piece and Nate's take from it. It's well worth the watch. You can also find the news over at NVIDIA's site, with a few screenshots that I will also add below, for your viewing pleasure.
About the author: Chris Wray has been writing at Wccftech gaming section since 2015 and is an opinionated bloke from the north of the UK (think Ned Stark). He enjoys video games, films, books, beer, whisky and other alcohol. He also supports Manchester Utd and for some reason he writes profile pages in the third person. His expertise is in gaming and the games industry, primarily on the PC. In addition to this, he works with and contributes to the finance and tech sections.
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