Ray Tracing in Dragonflight

Off-Topic Games, Gaming and Hardware
1

I’m just curious about what people’s overall impressions of Ray Tracing in WoW have been, and if Dragonflight will make better use of Ray Tracing compared to Shadowlands.

In Shadowlands, Ray Tracing seemed very pointless. There seemed to be almost no advantage to enabling Ray Tracing, and the resulting decrease in performance definitely made it not worth it.

Example Screenshots:
Ray Tracing OFF
Ray Tracing ON

The one and only advantage that I’ve seen with Ray Tracing is that shadows blur at increased distances. Like for example:
Ray Tracing OFF
Ray Tracing ON

That is an improvement IMO, since it is odd for Shadows to be unnaturally sharp even when you are very far away from the surface that the shadow is being projected onto. But when doing content, how often are you paying attention to shadows that are so far away?

One major thing that Ray Tracing is supposed to do is help handle multiple sources of light, and project shadows accordingly. Imagine if you were in a room with two sources of light. When you are close to one source of light, your shadow will primarily be based on that source of light. As you walk from that light source to the other light source, your first shadow will gradually fade, and a 2nd shadow will gradually grow more prominent. While in the middle, you should actually appear to have two separate faint shadows.

I have yet to encounter anywhere in the game (In Shadowlands) where I ever have more than one shadow at the same time. In addition, the shadow that is cast from my character does not always seem to correspond with obvious sources of light in the location where I am (lamps, fires, other bright objects, etc). If I am standing right next to a bright lamp or a fire, then my character should be casting a related shadow. But often, my character is instead casting a single shadow from some random unknown light source above the character. These other sources of light (lamps, etc) don’t appear to be actual sources of light, but merely random textures.

So based on that, I strongly believe that the main issue with the underwhelming implementation of Ray Tracing in Shadowlands isn’t related to the Ray Tracing tech itself, but rather, lazy content creation that isn’t actually designating light sources in a particular location as being actual sources of light. That lamp, that fire, etc, isn’t actually producing any light as far as the game engine is concerned.

Perhaps this is because most Shadowlands content was actually made before Ray Tracing was really introduced into the game? Dragonflight would be the first expansion where Ray Tracing has existed even during the expansion’s development. Has anyone seen any evidence that Ray Tracing is being better utilized in Dragonflight? Are obvious sources of light in Dragonflight content (lamps, fires, etc) made into actual sources of light now?

2

I leave raytracing turned on anywhere I don’t need to be competitive, because as you pointed out the shadow attenuation/blurring is a nice touch after years of having a razor sharp shadow when 2000ft up in the air. FPS loss isn’t too noticeable with a 3080ti @ 2560x1440, and this is a tab target MMO not an FPS so it’s not like I need to be running at 240FPS all the time anyway.

But yes, you’re on the right track with your suspicions as to why raytraced lighting is absent. While some light sources make use of proper dynamic lamps (e.g. some torches you can equip) and could be made to cast raytraced light reasonably easily, a lot of the game’s lighting is done with hacks.

Ironically Classic would be better off in an automated conversion to RTX lighting in outdoor areas, because from Vanilla through WotLK, all lampposts, campfires, etc made use of dynamic lamps. As their name implies, dynamic lamps dynamically “cast” light on their surroundings that will follow the object they’re attached to around and can change brightness and color (many lamps in-game use this for a flickering effect). This is why you can carry a torch and have the light follow you. Because these lamps are actively casting, they can be converted into raytraced lights without much trouble.

For some reason, in Cataclysm many outdoor light sources were changed to use a hack known as vertex lighting, where luminance is static and painted onto areas surrounding the light source to give the illusion of casting light — essentially, “render these polygons with lighting of X color with Y strength coming from Z direction”. This lighting transfers to the player character when they stand on vertex lit polygons, but because it’s static it can’t move or change color or luminance. Vertex lightning has also been used in most indoor environments since the game launched. If you walk into an inn or dungeon for example, nearly all the lighting in those is baked vertex lighting.

Oddly, there was also a second style of fake lighting that was added in Cataclysm, which seems like vertex lighting in that it’s static and “painted on”, but it won’t illuminate your player character when you’re standing on it. This style appears in any of the lampposts in Stormwind that’ve been present since the Cata revamp. What’s interesting though is that the lampposts in the Lion’s Rest area, which was added in Legion, use proper dynamic lamps.

In short, vertex lighting and whatever is going on with the Stormwind lampposts may not be directly convertible to dynamic lamps and thus may not be eligible for automated conversion to raytraced lights. A lot of the game’s lighting would may have to be redone by hand.

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3

what is the point of raytracing in a game that looks like a cartoon?

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4

On Ultra-wide monitor… and full settings it does gives you immersive feelings. It’s just great for those kind of people, I turn it on when I’m exploring and chilling in the World.

The game looks smoother on 4k + Ray tracing on with that Ultrawide monitor, try it.

5

Counterintuitively, simple graphics actually sometimes benefit more from high quality lighting and shading than fancier graphics do because its effects are more obvious than they are with a highly detailed or pseudorealistic graphical style.

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6

When I finally got a 3080Ti during Shadowlands and tried it when I was standing alone in Ardenweald, I felt the same way you did - barely an appealing difference to be worth keeping it on. I remember decreasing from 110 to 90 FPS.

Add that to the fact they were only able to implement RT shadows; no lighting unless something is planned down the line…

7

What is the option called now for ray tracking i can’t see to find it i have a rtx 3060ti 1080 p gamer here?

8

When i first bought my 3060ti msi gaming x gpu i was so excited to try out ray tracing.

I play wow locked at 85 fps on ultra with raytracing on high on a 1440p, 27inch gsync acer predator monitor.

When i first turned on ray tracing i was so dissapointed. I didnt notice a thing.

I then found a spot in ashran warspear at night. A tauren is knelt down in front of an animal pelt in front of a campfire. The way his shadow is hitting the pelt is awesome.

But yes, i agree. They need to fix ray tracing. Either that or get a new engine that can do proper ray tracing.

9

Another place where it’s visible is anywhere there’s sunlight/moonlight shining through tree branches onto the ground (e.g. Elwynn). The shadows are nice and soft like you’d see in real life, and it looks so much better than the old razor sharp dynamic shadows did in that particular situation.

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10

I never noticed that. Ill have to check it out on my night elf druid.