Media Manipulation: the "Bullshot" phenomenon

Target renders. Bullshots. Pre-renders. Grading. Post-processing. A whole new terminology has built up within the games community to describe the ways and means by which game-makers are creating promotional material that may or may not actually look like the product they'll eventually be playing on their consoles and computers. Where did it begin, why are they doing it, and in the internet age where any kind of fakery and shenanigans is swiftly jumped upon, shouldn't they really be stopping it?

[DelbertGrady]

Very interesting and well-written read. Nice to get the bullshot explained by someone who has worked as a magazine editor and knows his stuff.

[N4GAddict]

very informative article

[Voozi]

Yea pretty good article

[Redempteur]

nice article ..everyone does it except nintendo since there are not even in the HD area yet ..

i guess more and more people cheated and then cheating became the norm .. that's sad

[C_SoL]

how people trip over this sh!t (I'm talking about the people down below)........Is the trailer supposed to look sh!tty? Honestly these trailers get me hyped up about the product that I want.

People are so delusional these days. Watch tv people it happens everyday.....Media Manipulation. So Boo-Hoo

[FamilyGuy]

As long as it looks similar to what you're really going to be seeing in-game. I prefer game play videos to trailers anyway as trailer are supposed to be enhanced, just like movie trailers showing the best, most exciting or funniest parts of a movie. Trailers are made to sell the idea of what you're getting so there's no point in calling "bullshot" when you're looking at a trailer anyway.

Good read, and good info on how these things really work.

[ShiftyLookingCow]

agreed. Whats worse? Fanboys love them, they would rather be deceived than see what the actual game looks like.

[PirateThom]

They missed Epic and Gears of War 2.

http://dougary2112.files.wo...

[DelbertGrady]

They also "missed" the Killzone 2 and Motorstorm trailers from E3 2005.

Here's a bullshot as well: http://media.photobucket.co...

[Fishy Fingers]

I believe pretty much every promotional screen has had some sort of "work" on it. Especially ones released early. Epic certainly take the biscuit though.

[PirateThom]

Of course promotional shots have work done, Epic are just worse than anyone else.

1080p? Massive improvements to anti-aliasing and textures?

This isn't even rendered via a 360, it's a high end PC.

[NaiNaiNai]

PirateThom Open zone is over there -------->

BTW how did you get so many bubbles you were down to 4 like a week ago..

*on topic*

I don't see the problem with bullshots. Gives you a general Idea of what the game "should, could" look like. Most of the time its not to far off.

[N4GAddict]

As long as it ends up looking relatively close, I see no problem with bullshots.

[PirateThom]

NaiNaiNai
Open zone is over there, not sure how it relates to my post though.

And I've never had 4 bubbles.

[wxer]

@ soda

that's killzone2 gameplay

im pretty sure it is

i paly the game evryday and thats what i see

[Boody-Bandit]

First of all you are the last person that should be telling people to head to the open zone.

2nd Pirate Thom has been riding 10 bubbles for as long as I can remember. I know because I bubble him every time N4G allows.

Now on topic:
Nearly every dev and publisher are guilty of bullshots. I don't know why it's a big deal. It's just part of the whole hype machine and a good (no doubt deceiving) PR tool. I never fall for them. I take everything I see and read from the gaming media with a grain of salt until I play the game for myself.

This was actually a good read.

[crillyconlig]

gears was the worst offenders, cant compare kz and motorstorm, those where target renders

[crillyconlig]

thats actual in game screen of killzone

[Voozi]

wxer that one screenshot, they admitted to doing minor touchups to it

http://www.monstersandcriti...

"Guerilla Games’ Seb Downie, while conceding that some slight adjustments have indeed been applied to the images in question, has insisted that nothing was changed in terms of content or composition, with only slight aesthetic detailing being subjected to Photoshop-like enhancements.

"They are only the tiniest bit touched up," wrote Downie on the official PlayStation 3 forum, before adding that "a little bit of colour-correction [was] done and some minor polish, but nothing major. Still very close to reality and it looks better in motion in my opinion.""

But I mean, nothing compared to this lol http://dlb-network.com/wp-c...

[poopsack]

i lold at nai sending people to the open zone, its like hey join me at my home, its lonely there.

On topic, its an ok article, and its not an offense to me if thats what im seeing while i play, and in GT5P, it is.

Now, gears that bullshot is extreme, very extreme. The killzone 2 i think is touched up also, but with a couple of filters, and these were filters that were later added to the game before release, so i see it more as a target render touch.

[ShabzS]

i think epic was hyping up its unreal engine 3 at the time with some cool screens... who could forget they even said they used a 100 percent of the 360's processing power for their first UE 3 game gears 2... real question is who actually believed them through all of this ?

[Saaking]

Soda, Killzone 2 actually looks like that picture. Gears 2, not even close.

[Noob]

You haven't played the game. It looks so much better, especially in motion.

This would of been a much better example.

http://images.gamersyde.com...

That compressed picture looks like it is from the final build of the game which has more color and is at a higher resolution. The older builds looks more grayish. Nice fail.

@ Xiphos

I agree. Other games like MGS4 use it too but they don't abuse like Gears and Halo does.

[Megaton]

Yeah I'd say Epic is the biggest offender. They make Gears look better than CGI sometimes, then the game comes out running standard UE3 graphics. I've noticed that with many games that run on UE3, though. I guess that engine just works well for bullshotting.

lol @ Soda's Killzone image. That's how the game actually looks, you should try it sometime, you might like it.

[DonCorneo]

no upcoming xbox game (odst and forza are not good-looking in motion).

plus, there are no screenshots for GT5, as far as I know. how can you bullshot an actual moving trailer? it's either a cgi movie or it's using the in-game engine. of course, pre-rendered will look better than actual gameplay.. if you want to judge, wait for actual gameplay footage (the videos has the phrase actual gameplay footage in it)

the kz2 trailer was cgi, same with ms. the actual engine for them aren't even at 10% during that time. nobody said it was in-game.

having played the beta, we already know uncharted 2 looks good.

[Information Minister]

Of course this is biased. What did you expect? These are the same guys who already decided months ago that FF XIII looks better on the 360. No word of praise towards the PS3 ever came out from Digital Foundry's staff. Quite the opposite.

[CIO Caveman Trolls]

"They missed Naughty Dog and Uncharted 2" = Bullcrapshot

[coolirisGB]

Forgot to post links to Uncharted 2 and Heavy Rain.

[DonCorneo]

because we already played the beta.. LOL.. xbots, do you remember back in 2007, xbots playing the gaylo 3 beta and cannot accept that the graphics were fugly -- saying that it's just the beta version and the screenshot (bullshots) show it's gonna be good?

denial mode up until the actual release.. and then xbots said, gaylo 3 is not about graphics, it's about having fun.. LMAO

[frnkyl]

Don't forget Gears of War 2 XD

[yoghurt]

Actually Soda, the real thing doesn't look that much different - seriously!

[wxer]

agree
actually
thats a gameplay pic

and i don't thin GT needs this
GT always deliver

[DelbertGrady]

I never said it did. I just thought it was annoying that PirateThom had to focus on flaming instead of writing something constructive for once. The article already mentioned Halo 3, Mass Effect 2 and Star Ocean 4 but NO, that wasn't enough for him. He had to take it one step further.

[Xi]

If a console game screenshot or video features 1 or more of the following it's likely not a real representation of the final product.

1 - if it's in a resolution higher the current HD resolutions, 1080/720 etc.

2 - if there is full anti aliasing on the image

3 - if common post processing effects like blur, hdr, depth of field are acting on the full image.

4 - screen tearing (stitched photos) or irregularities that shouldn't be present, like smudged colours, out of place objects or awkward shadows.

5 - uncommon amount of detail in textures or models.

[aldesko]

Yeah, the anti-aliasing gives it away most of the time.

[-x.Red.x-]

but but bu killzone would not look that good!

[Saaking]

it's just jealous bots angry because Guerrilla delivered and Epic didn't.

[Unicron]

Personally, I dislike this phenomenon. I dont think it accurately represents the final product that the consumer will be playing. The biggest offenders I feel are pretty much 90% of PS2 shots (God of War 2, Kingom Hearts 2 were huge offenders) and anything released by Epic (UT3, Gears franchise). Then again, I shouldn't be singling out anyone as pretty much EVERYONE is doing this, especially sports titles.

But sadly, I dont think this phenom will ever change. That's why I feel demos are so important. Until we see it on our own TVs, we should be skeptical.

[Pandamobile]

I hate seeing trailers that aren't representative of the actual gameplay.

Maybe that's why I love the Meet the Team videos so much.

At least all the Crysis trailers were in-game footage.

[Saaking]

like halo wars?

[Xi]

Halo wars cutscenes were cgi and no one ever tried to pass it off as gameplay, unlike the original motorstorm and killzone 2 trailer.

maybe try playing the game first before making claims like that. It was an rts, why would people think an RTS would look like that?

that was one of the dumbest comments I've ever read.

[poopsack]

cutscenes are not trailers.

[GiantEnemyCrab]

It is no different when they use the cut-scenes as trailers. Xi is right you are FOS if you think the cut-scenes/trailers were ever trying to be passed off as game play.

[JBaby343]

That was a misquote when he was talking about a different game but people still love to use it.

@ crab: What if it's an in-game, in-engine cutscene?

For the record I wish developers would show their games for what they are.

[kaveti6616]

Firstly, all the bullshots of Gears of War 2 can probably be real time gameplay if there was a PC version. That is interesting to note, because whenever anyone says it looks too good to be true, it all depends on whether they are talking about consoles or PC. I also dislike bullshots, but my real concern is that developers knowingly touch up the screenshots instead of tweaking the gameplay to look that good. The Xbox 360 can push out twice as many polygons as the PS3, that is fact (not to sound like a fanboy). So even though the PS3 will have more dynamic environments (because of the processing power of the Cell), the 360 should theoretically be able to pull off really amazing graphics. I attribute the lack of amazing looking games on the 360 to lazy developers and lack of artistic imagination. Look at what Naughty is able to do with Uncharted 2. Many of the visuals in their game is done by hand by the artists. The wall textures are drawn on rather than processed, so the Cell doesn't have to work as hard. Why can't anyone at Microsoft show as much vision and care in their games as the Sony devs. Honestly, this is not a hardware issue, it's always been about software.

[Xi]

what are you talking about?

[Pandamobile]

The PS3 and 360 GPU's aren't that far off the mark from each other.

Saying the 360 can output 2x more triangles in a frame seems pretty wrong.

[na2ru1]

GT5P having some of the most detailed car modelling ever on consoles you believe PS3 is unable to outnumber 360's polygon count? And Forza3 looking pretty good, you call Turn 10 lazy?

You know what? STFU!

[kaveti6616]

Yeah, dumbass, I am saying that the Xenos is more powerful than the RSX you ignorant twit. The Xenos can output 500 million polygons per second. The RSX can output 275 million polygons per second. GT5 looks better than Forza 3 because Polyphony Digital is more talented than Turn 10 and knows how to leverage the resources of the PS3 hardware. If you idiots just stopped being biased for one fricking second, you could have searched the internet and found out that what I said was true.

@Pandamobile.

If something "seems" wrong to you then you search the net and find out. You don't just say that it seems wrong and leave it at that. The theoretical polygon performance of the Xenos GPU is twice as good as the theoretical polygon performance of the RSX. Keep in mind we are talking about the GPUs. The artistic excellence of PD and Naughty Dog is reflected in their work. They are able to pull off better details with less polygons because of hand-drawn textures.

Telling me to STFU is probably the most amusing comment. Consider the fact that I am one of the least biased people on this site, that I appreciate the strengths of both consoles and that I don't ever go around trolling articles. Consider that, dumbass Na2ru. If I say something you don't want to hear, go elsewhere.

[JBaby343]

I disagree with you. Xenos may be more powerful than the RSX but it's not all about the GPUs. That's why the CELL is there. It takes a huge load off the GPU to render scenes and even handles some shader ops. Up to 40% of the scene in Killzone 2 is done by the CELL. If it was only RSX doing all the processing it wouldn't look nearly as good. Theoretically the PS3 actually produces higher poly counts thanks to the CELL. It more than makes up for the differences in power between the GPUs.

I do think Sony 1st party devs are some of the best out there but with the 360 being much easier to code for and thus easier to get more out of than the PS3 there must be some other reason besides "dev talent" that PS3 games consistently have more going on on-screen, better effects, and higher poly counts (among other things) all at the same time.

[kaveti6616]

The Cell doesn't render polygons. So your argument went right out the window.

[shadow2797]

Now I don't know much about computers or how the architecture in any of the next gen systems work, but doesn't the RAM make the theoretical polygon counts irrelevant?

I'm sorry, but there's just no way the 360 (not Xenos) is capable of rendering twice the number of polygons as the PS3 (not RSX). You simply can't just take one part of the whole architecture to prove a point. The architecture in both machines works together to create what we see. And surprisingly the results are pretty darn close. Nowhere near as big as the differences between the Xbox and PS2.

But, again, I have pretty limited computer knowledge. However, MS's devs aren't that bad at what they do. If they were capable of that kind of power, we would have seen it.

[kaveti6616]

I didn't say the PS3 wasn't more powerful than the 360 overall. The PS3 is on a whole more powerful than the 360. But in the area of polygon pushing power, the 360 can indeed push out theoretically twice as many polygons per second as the PS3's GPU can. It's hard to to believe because fanboys from the PS3 side have been brainwashed into believing that the PS3 is more powerful in every single aspect of the hardware. I personally don't care enough to be biased. I know the PS3 is more powerful in every other way and the developers on Sony's end have truly displayed that power with their artistic skill. The 360s developers are used to obtaining all of the resources of the 360 up front, so they never optimize the hardware enough to run the code efficiently. Using the Unreal Engine 3 for exclusives is not going to cut it.

[callahan09]

@ kaveti:

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Not the best example, but the entire scene is rendered by a cluster of cell microprocessors and nothing else. So the cells are capable of triangle rendering and ray-tracing.

[JBaby343]

I've seen a video of the city of Rome rendered on nothing but the CELL. Maybe youtube or somewhere but other videos exist also. More than one developer has already said the CELL helps out a lot with geometry processing. It's not just isolated to the RSX. The hardware works as a whole which is different from the 360.

[Krimmson]

I believe a big case of bullshots were Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm.
http://ps3.by/NUNS/naruto_u...
http://nirveda.files.wordpr...
http://www.juegosdb.com/wp-...

Now don't get me wrong. The game is very beautiful in motion and when watching the game on an HD TV, it really does stand out.
But the game isn't THAT good looking. It actually has many jagged edges.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3...
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3...
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3...

Ofcoarse when the game is in motion, you hardly even see the edges.

[Voozi]

Oh yea totally forgot about that game. I remember the early teasers and screenshots I was like "WOW THIS GAME IS AMAZING LOOKING!!" and then I finally get it, and...JAGGED EDGES EVERYWHERE but was still a great game and had tons of fun with it (loved the fighting mechanics in it, too bad wasn't any online in it, hopefully in the Shippuuden game there will be online)

But yea I agree, in motion you don't really notice the aliasing unless it's something you're trying to notice

[wxer]

i dont think those were bullshots
it looks like some footage from the ANIME

[Voozi]

It's not from the anime. There were never those scenes in the anime (similar scenes, yes, exact scenes in those screenshots, no, well besides the third one, but the colors are different from the anime)

But according to http://www.gamersyde.com/ne... they were apparently target renders "After the target render, Namco-Bandai releases the first true screenshots of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm."

[Noob]

Then they did a great job trying to match it. Anyone with a PS3 should at least download the demo and try it out. The graphics are amazingly well done. The only bad part about this game is that there's no online.

[Time_Is_On_My_Side]

If you look at the image, there isn't anything 3D about it, it's just a high definition render of a 2D motion picture. Even the trailer released has anime footage either created for the game or from the show.

[Voozi]

They never used anime scenes in their trailers :| show me the trailer that they did

Also the ground and trees in http://www.us.playstation.c... are pretty much what we see in the game. That's also the same fireball Sasuke fires in the game. The fireball Sasuke fires in the anime is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Plus you can even see aliasing in this picture, look at Sakura for one, that's the most noticeable case. If this was from an anime scene, we wouldn't have this problem. So either it's A) Target render...B) Bullshot...or C) Actual in-game screenshot that they did touching up on because I think we can agree that the colors in the final product aren't that deep, and there's more aliasing as well. Lets look at this one for example which is obviously in-game to compare colors of Naruto in the same lighting: http://www.us.playstation.c...

But still, regardless of target render, screenshot touchups, or whatever, game still looks great and no online is really the main complaint for this game since it's the best looking Naruto game out there imo.

[Sunny_D]

Gears is the biggest offender... LOOK at the difference. lol Xbots were fooled easily.

[The-Warranty]

.

[Saaking]

wow, poor bots. Those kind of graphics are only possible on a High-end PC and they thought their failbox could handle it. Haha.

[tehReaper]

Dude that was a target render for Gears of War 1, I remember the magazine that featured it. Notice how Marcus looks, well, not like Marcus.

Dumb droid. Try harder.

[kingdavid]

@dem0n

LOL at the disagrees you're getting. PS3 fans in denial. You are 100 % correct. Ive still got a mag with that pic in it.

[Saaking]

GT5 does look that good. I can see how GT PSP might be manipulated, but I'm sure GT5 will looks great. Guerrilla was able to meet and surpass their target render. PD is more than capable of doing the same.

[Xi]

Halo uses it in their photo and video mode but I found that gt5p compared to the replay, and then compared to the promotional images and trailers was staggering.

http://game-server-hosting....

compared to

http://ruliwebimg.empas.com...

another bad one was mass effect, the shadows on the face in promotional images look much much better then the actual game. Every time i started a conversation with a human I cringed a little because it looked like they had some sort of a skin disease... which is sorta ironic.

Gears and unreal tourney did it a lot too, but they're trying to sell an expensive engine to developers so it's a bit more understanbable that they'll embellish the content, it's not any more moral or right, but understandable.

motorstorm did a pretty bad job too.
http://www.wallpapergate.co...

compared to

http://cache.kotaku.com/ass...

[JBaby343]

But they are not the worst. Epic is the king of bullshots from what I've seen. The Gears pics are not even close. I don't buy that they did it to sell the engine to developers because devs can tell what is game and what isn't. I don't think any of them will be fooled. I think they are just selling their game to the masses.

On-topic: I wish companies didn't do this. Show your game for what it is. Be proud of your work. To me it says you don't have faith in your work or don't think it's good enough.

[DonCorneo]

those flopza bullshots are not just touched-up, they are from a different game. have you seen flopza in motion? it's ugly: http://www.youtube.com/watc... flopza is not even 1080 (GT5:P is, and GT5 will be).

the GT trailer is like the intro movies of every GT before, they are not CGI, all in-game. xbots will start crying when they realize that the trailer is actually how good GT5 will look

this article is biased.. no bullshots for upcomign 3fixme games (really? odst and flopza must really look good in motion.

[Saaking]

Wow, flopza doesn't even come close to GT5p let alone the actual GT5. Bots, MS has lied enough about the sh!tbox's capabilities don't you think.

[WaitStation 3]

That is an "off-screen" cam view, ya douche. A few things Forza 3 will have over GT5...

1. Will not be boring

2. Endless custimizations

3. A real community/people actually playing online

4. 1 million polygon count

5. Better crash/driving physics

[tehReaper]

Dude, go back to your cave. If you think Forza 3 looks bad, you need to get some glasses.

[wxer]

@ WaitStation 3

you really are one big fanboy

1- GT has never been boring
ive been playing it Since ps1
and its still fun

2- customization is not every thing in a driving sim
actually in GT you can heavily customize your car mechanics more than you can do in forza

the GT series really makes you go deep in customizing your car engine
and almost every small thing in it
but not the visuals of that car

3- i think 16 can on track in the same time are better that just 8

4- talking about polygon
GT wins in this one no question

5- GT is having great physics long time a go
and in GT5 it well be better and it well have crashing now

so i dont know what you got on GT
forza is good
but GT is epic

i know cus i got them all

and you just keep proven that you are one big fanboy

[rareairtone]

gt5 may look really good, but it has less polygons than forza! Polyphony for the longest time has been saying their game's cars each have about 200,000 polygons. http://propergraphics.com/3...

Why would these people render the car to PD's standards and use under 200,000 polygons if the gt 5's cars have more polygons?

you're just a punk fanboy who doesn't understand how graphics work. GT 5 looks good because of their texture work and they know how to make those cars looks shapely even though the polygons are limited. Don't think it's because the polygon count is higher than forza 3

Forza 3 had a shorter development time. to make up for having to make a whole new game in 2 years instead of the 6 or so years GT 5 has been in development, they use 1 million polygons per car.

GT 5 may fundamentally look better than forza 3, but it's not because of freakin polygons

[cond3m3r]

even tho all we've really seen is their "CGI" trailer...but cmon guys ppl've been busting balls about Forza and GT5 pics ever since E3. The article gives out some great points, but even if it doesnt come completely close...we shouldnt expect it to look all like that..i mean does forza gameplay look like its non-gameplay pics?nope...but ppl still think its looks great. Im sure GT5 will make a lot of jaws drop when we see the actual gameplay.

[na2ru1]

only to be dissappointed by the size of it since the banner showed it the size of my car.

[Daves]

Very very funny, spat out my drink.

[iceman06]

What about those commercials where you spray "AXE" all over yourself and all the ladies come running....dammit I bought the "AXE"...sprayed it....now where's my women???*lmao* Okay...I'll settle for a giant burger!!!

[devilhunterx]

xb2 owners sure love their bullshots.

[GiantEnemyCrab]

That's what you came up with?

I will keep on saying it.. The worst to ever grace gaming you lot.

[xg-ei8ht]

Soda Popinsky

You know whats funniest.

The screenshot of GT5 is in game. and so is most of the GT5 footage.

For me GT5P looks unreal behind the wheel.

Pit crews are supposed to be happening in the full game, hopefully weather and damage are all included.

And trust me, the game looks better from behind the wheel.

Just like uncharted 1&2.

Motorstorm 1&2 look fantastic.

Sorry but PS3 has raised the bar in every genre and it's upto PC/360 to try and keep up.

In a week where Black Rock Studios' David Jefferies (via Develop magazine) revealed that Microsoft has dropped its requirement that games should run at a minimum resolution of 720p, it may well be that there will be even more games released with unrepresentative media assets. That being the case, maybe there is an argument that it should be the media's responsibility to move away from its "spoon-fed" attitude to running screens and vids without question, and verify their authenticity on the readers' behalf?

[Hanif-876]

But GT5 prologue does look like the screenshots. i remembered one day when i was watching a replay that i just did and my uncle thought that it was real.

[xtreampro_REVENGE]

The MotorStorm devs never used the CGI pic which you posted as a target render, the devs clearly said about 100x's that the CGI clips were made to give the audience a feel of how intense the game will be, they never said it's gameplay. Anyone including you who thought that it was real-time is a flippin idiot.

[DonCorneo]

how do you expect a title still in pre-alpha stage to look that good? the actual game engine is just being developed during E3 2005.. of course, those were target renders.. and everybody said it was

now, check out those forza 3 screen and wait for it to be released and then disappointed.

it's funny how there are no microsoft games showing actual game play footage compared to sony's gow3 and uncharted 2 back in E3 09

[Hanif-876]

there's no doubt that Gran Turismo 5 is the most realistic driving sim on the planet. My honda integra in GT5 prologue, handles just like mine in real life...i was amazed!

[Dead_Cell]

People who hump the leg of Forza talk about it as a driving simulator and then all they bang on about is the decals they can customise there car with and what the crashes look like.
Face it that you don't want Forza to actually be a driving sim.

[housegroove76]

I've never gotten a Big Mac that looks like the ones in the commercials, but still tastes really good.

[keysy420]

that game is a demo you cant makea arguement on a game that is essentially in beta mode still.

[PS360PCROCKS]

Really cool article.

[baodeus]

@doncorneo

no microsoft games showing actual game play footage compared to sony's gow3 and uncharted 2 back in E3 09

where were u when x360 show game play footage of alan wake, forza 3, splinter cell? A great example of fanboy....they are blind.

i agree with the article, but seriously game play is where it is at or have gamers forget that games are meant to be played, not to look for pixel. No wonder games aren't fun like they used to be.