Ray Tracing Image Quality
Now we are going to look at Ray Tracing image quality in Resident Evil Village. The best way to really see how Global Illumination affects image quality is to look at the entire frame and do a side-by-side comparison, which we have done below. In the left side comparison you will see No Ray Tracing, and the right side will be HIGH Ray Tracing on both options. Global Illumination is one of the biggest advantages to lighting in the game.
By comparing side-by-side above you can see that turning on Ray Tracing changes lighting in the entire scene. It actually adds more depth to the scene by making sure light is projected and bouncing off of objects in the correct way. Areas that should be in the shadows, or darker, are, and areas that should be more lit, are.
In this comparison note how with Ray Tracing enabled light from the fire above shines on the ground and follows the contours of the ground better. Without Ray Tracing the light does not fall under the cart as it should. Also, the atmosphere of the background objects falls off into the dark better.
This one is very obvious, the lighting from the lamp more accurately fills all the areas that it should with Ray Tracing
In indoor scenes it can more accurately map the lighting from the window.
The overall atmosphere with the way light is between the background and foreground enhances the mood of the game so much.
In this comparison look at the candle holder. As the Ray Tracing quality increases the way light reflections work improves. You can also see better, more accurate lighting on the statue as well.
This comparison shows that enabling Ray Tracing does enable better reflections. The roof of the house in this image is reflected in the blood when Ray Tracing is enabled. As the level of Ray Tracing quality increases other subtle areas around the blood reflect light better.