9 COOL Developer Tricks & Techniques in The Last of Us Part II

[@Speclizer]

Didn't have time to get what I had planned out this week, so here's a video I made a while back instead. 😁

[@PRagu2010]

Hey man some people say that Rat king or something like big infected creature can be heard in a sewer tunnel when I escaped from stalkers If you don't understand my location watch a youtuber name bexxyrae mabey he can tell you the location. So can show us from out of bound in Tunnel who is that creature is there a model of rat king?

[@ChadMichaelSimon]

Thirsty Audience: Whatchoo got? Whatchoo got? Speclizer: Hmm. Not much. Just this. Thirsty Audience: [insert delighted Andy from Parks and Rec gif] Speclizer: Oh, this old thing? I just through that together on a lark. Thirsty Audience: [insert mesmerized, drooling Stimpy gif]

[@elliejoel475]

The Last Of Us Part II is best masterpiece of eighth generation...

[@Speclizer]

@@PRagu2010 It's just a sound effect, the ratking model isn't actually there :(

[@PRagu2010]

@@Speclizer ok and one more thing Joel sweard to Ellie that he tell truth about Fireflies but he lied so he died cause he break the swear.

[@FloydTheWolf]

5:15 : I'm more impressed about the fact they actually modelized Tommy here, and not just a random bright light.

[@nicolasrodriguesdossantos1881]

They did this trick in the first game. Just a light of the scope and the shots "spawning" in your direction

[@RainbowCrash56]

@@nicolasrodriguesdossantos1881 can confirm I thought i could take out the sniper in the first game and surprise It was just the rifle lol

[@humansadness3749]

@@RainbowCrash56 i did this too, had me feeling stupid bc ofc they wouldn’t render all that

[@narckiller6561]

@@RainbowCrash56 not in the remake though

[@10kkillerz71]

5:10 I find that quiet cool that they actually made Tommy in that shot I was expecting like a floating sniper or something like that not actually him standing there with the sniper that’s amazing.

[@lilashiko]

Fun fact: In both games, the first combat scenario against human enemies involves you flanking the enemy from the left. Both Tess and Dina will tell you they’ll cover you and to get the angle on them.

[@kylurity]

Good catch

[@gerardoalanis4016]

There is also at the beggining of both games, after the multiyear jump, both Ellie and Joel wake up to a knock at the door

[@Maniac-Design]

Dude thanks a lot ! I'm an indie game developer, I thought they used tesselation displacement for snow, I've never seen a parallax occlusion so well done, that explains why the performance is good because tesselation is much more expensive. I will be able to use the same technique now, it will be much more optimized.

[@AbrahamLure]

ND are the kings of optimisation! They have a few developer conference type discussions on their YT channel, definitely worth a look if you haven't seen them already as they seem very eager to share their knowledge with fellow devs

[@quesoismyname_]

i learn something new about this game everyday

[@scottl500]

Same

[@brettbatliner]

Truly is a masterpiece

[@LexLutha]

I wish I could play it for the first time again

[@Lilhajxjk274]

Even though they did cut a lot of corners. Those cut corners are hard to see or even impossible to see without camera mode and what the player can see normally looks phenomenal

[@randomnpc4915]

This isn't even a camera mode it's a mod used to look around in real time which is all the more impressive since not even a single player would notice this stuff.

[@hamedshahr]

It's not cutting corners. It's proper game development. The developers who don't use these techniques are lazy. There's no point in wasting resource on things players don't see/notice.

[@Lilhajxjk274]

@@hamedshahr I never called them lazy. The whole entire point of my comment was that in some parts it's simple design while in what's noticeable its extremely detailed and realistic.

[@ThyAxeman]

@@hamedshahr and that's the reason why this game looks stunning on ps4, while some new games still looks quite bad on ps5. Optimization is core, and that's something which Naughty Dog has perfected.

[@TheAmazingSpiderGuy_99]

Naughty Dog’s reduced animations are better than most devs full detail animations up close lol.

[@Proxio]

Agreed LOL

[@G4RiX]

And then you woke up...

[@andybagles4156]

The reduced Animations are just the same Anims playing at a significantly lower Framerate. They're not different Animations.

[@proudbeanerii3810]

@saki184 All gaming companies crunch their workers . Some more than others

[@jaaaaaaaaaaaaaay]

@ninja potato all game companies do this. Employees dont mind because it goes on there resume and they find jobs easier.

[@JAY1892]

2:51 The sound of agony Nora makes on the second hit is top tier acting and quite saddening.

[@charvqq]

1:14 LMAO THE WAY ELLIE IS BOUNCING

[@theocafe]

It’s so relaxing to watch your videos before going to sleep, you have no idea

[@Viniredfox]

Good night baby...

[@theendersoldier07]

It really is though

[@txsmia]

omg yes ^^^^

[@mpcs98]

damn that's just what I'm doing now

[@nulliverse1891]

The music is so relaxing

[@id3YRecreating]

I love this video, this is so interesting !

[@zaydagoat-es5vq]

6:04 I actually did notice that whenever Abby throws Ellie towards the screen they use her body as a transition to teleport you to the location which is actually very cool

[@ucall_me_t9303]

Naughty Dog is years ahead of other companies. Other companies look at TLoU2 and say "How tf am I gonna keep up with that or make a game on that level?" It's just not gonna happen. Even tlou1 is ahead of a LOT of recent games.

[@ucall_me_t9303]

@@saadamin201 ik, I played it. And imo, not in TLoU2 level. They're very different games tho, rdr2 is insanely good tho

[@ucall_me_t9303]

@@saadamin201 It's the story they wanted to tell us... For me? Best game ever made.

[@ucall_me_t9303]

@@saadamin201 same, both are masterpieces

[@dilakssd1262]

@@ucall_me_t9303 RDR2 is an open world game and tlou2 is a story focused game so creating a open world game takes lot more effort than a story focused game and rdr2 is detailed at its best so is tlou2

[@jongcena2555]

@@saadamin201 rdr2 is an open world, so it's obvious that there is more attention in the physic, weather, and envoirment. Tlou2 is a storydriven so it doesn't need a greath environment, weather etc...just good animations, characters models and textures.

[@scottl500]

This game doesn't deserve all the hate it gets.

[@kellybailey921]

Agreed. Even if you don’t like the story, which I love, you gotta admit, the gameplay and graphics are top notch

[@zaracatunga1879]

@@kellybailey921 the soundtrack is amazing too. Gustavo is a genius (and Mac Quayle of course)

[@scottl500]

@@zaracatunga1879 it is

[@c4lionosome974]

@@kellybailey921 it's literally a story-driven game. you can't just ignore it

[@Dahfukc]

@@derek2802 hehe your opinion won’t change the greatness of this game

[@juan2049]

God how I wish I could play this game for the first time again 😭

[@l4nzel0d]

It was so cool to discover Abby and Lev in that scene myself. I was just Playing around with photomode and this discovery made my day

[@ericblack3742]

Damn. The techniques they use were super awesome. Naughty Dogs are the masters of their craft. This game is a masterpiece. I don’t care what everyone says.

[@revelationluke3097]

Oh and the low quality animation for NPC's far away.. that's used so that the processor has it all preloaded that when you get in close proximity the game runs the world "npc's included" and it all just works smoothly and seamlessly.. you'll notice they'll just run normal.. cause animations are recorded or captured in loops.. walking cycles, running, movements and other motions ect. So with those ones some frames were taken out of them. They also barely take up that much space

[@ChrisKoelsch]

At 1:15 I never realized how shitty ellie looked firing the auto. It's like 2 frames back and forth.

[@Speclizer]

It depends on the angle you're shooting at. If you shoot straight, it looks normal but if you shoot up/down, it looks like a 2 frame animation 😂

[@timsonss]

5:57 bullet decals are parallaxed as well! dang, wish I new some of the techniques sooner, definetily implementing some of em in my worflow. Wont be looking at this game the same way now, absolute genius behind it

[@mxjokereh]

Thank you for this video, can introduce a lot of people on how difficult it is to build such " simple things "

[@Tatjana_L.]

Love that you explain every technique in case we don't know it :) This recently added "like - subscribe - hit the bell" should only be used at the end of the video, imho. After all, if this is somebody's first video of you they watch, they have no idea if they're going to like what they see, so placing it at the beginning as well seems inappropriate, imho. (Once, I clicked on a random video that sounded interesting and was immediately turned off when they asked all three requests right at the beginning of the video.)

[@Speclizer]

I appreciate the feedback! will definitely change that :)

[@aguilarlibertalia2703]

You are breaking all Houdini's Magic tricks. It is one of the rare video out there reminding me: it s a video game, not reality. Nice to see beyond the borders

[@RatedRLoquender]

This is one hell of a incredible game. Sure haters are gonna see that, same as MGS2 back in 2001.

[@ВладиславБулаев-л3э]

Thanks for making me laugh. How can you compare a timeless masterpiece, which predicted the society we live in today, to *THIS* ?

[@annapumpkin]

@@ВладиславБулаев-л3э oh yeah, cause people was completely fine with MGS2 back in those days, no criticism at all, everyone was sooo happy about it😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@ВладиславБулаев-л3э]

@@annapumpkin you weren't even born then

[@annapumpkin]

@@ВладиславБулаев-л3э ...damn, you COMPLETELY missed the point.

[@RatedRLoquender]

@@ВладиславБулаев-л3э Cuz Kojima got thousands of death threats when MGS2 came out He used “false advertising” for all his trailers He hide another protagonist from the public Fans hated to death that random nobody noob femboy out of nowhere MGS2 back in the day was considered THE WORST thing of gaming history The story was nothing that the fans wanted He created a character which at the time was put of the standard that we know Both games have so many similarities.

[@_Mr.Tuvok_]

2:54 My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined

[@txsmia]

FRRR

[@freehammerskateboarding488]

The low poly models look like every NPC in Cyberpunk 2077.

[@tacituskilgore14]

This video is so well done, I'm surprised there aren't more people mentioning this!

[@nirtendler6211]

If you're willing to make another Tlou1 secrets video, I'd actually like to see on Left Behind the moment that Ellie was bitten, cause I tried to really focus on it a few times but it happens so fast

[@mattithun4813]

I love that animation when a new point comes up

[@shoutamagatsuchi3076]

1:30 if ND placed actual interior furniture inside it would be mindblowing

[@jaaaaaaaaaaaaaay]

It would kill your playstatiin

[@hsd287]

Though that's not needed y would anyone wanna go into those rooms ?

[@Pouncingpuma7]

You can actually see Abby and Lev without the free cam. Enter photo mode when you see the blurry models and turn on depth of field.

[@bobbykbobette7426]

7:22 Cyberpunk footage

[@ucall_me_t9303]

Pls never stop uploading, I love your vids! Even took inspiration from you for my 1st tlou vid... You're insane fr

[@princessthyemis]

Incredible!!!! Loved the one where she was putting on her boots and they magically appeared on her 🤣

[@SSIops]

This games is a masterclass in technical achievement.

[@Alohomorovich]

That was so cool to learn I had no idea about the different techniques they use in video games. Thanks for these! 🙌🏾

[@Norm420]

This game was genuinely good, the story was good, I didn't have a problem with them killing Joel because I knew it was bound to happen. I also liked the ending where it seems like Ellie either ended up alone or left her pass behind, accepts that Joel's gone and went back to jackson (however you wanna interpret it) and the fact that Abby and Lev got to escape. The game's elements was also a top notch, graphics, sound design etc. overall it's great for me.

[@therealcjc]

I'm just a person who watched the playthroughs of the 2 games. But I absolutely agree. There is nothing contrived about the plot of part II. Joel's actions were bound to catch up to him in some way. It's very unrealistic to have a happy ever after ending for him and Ellie.

[@Norm420]

@@therealcjc Exactly!

[@hsd287]

​@@Norm420 doesn't matter Ellie ended up killing so many ppl for a revenge she never got to have neither did she and Abby patch up or anything to make peace with their histories the Fireflies were wrong no matter what their intentions were

[@hsd287]

​​​@@therealcjc if u play the games u realise the dark path everything takes because of the Fireflies they made everything worse simple nobody solves problems that way even if it's literally apocalypse

[@Cangaca777]

That bilboard technique was also used on the monsters in the classic Duke Nukem game. i remember the first time i played the game i was a little annoyed because i wanted to see the other parts of the monster's body after i killed them and they were aways facing me. xD

[@Speclizer]

It's used in basically every game you can think of. It's a powerful technique but sometimes it can break immersion if not used correctly.

[@Cangaca777]

@@Speclizer True. i didn't knew about the Interior Mapping one. really really clever! and it's probably used in many games aswell.

[@iNoScopedMLK]

Nice quality content here. I’m surprised you don’t have more subs, but here’s one more

[@Quirderph]

Interior mapping is always so trippy to me.

[@AndyGilleand]

God of War does the close up trick too, but instead of teleporting, they use it to hide unnatural motion that happens when a player model is moved to the correct spot for a preset animation. This is most notably done in the first fight with the visitor to Kratos's house.

[@Speclizer]

yep! It also happens in the final fight when Kratos jumps into the air and grapples Baldur with the blades of chaos!

[@dhiwantara8357]

man i really love this kind of video please keep uploading behind the scene like this its fun to watch and for some people its educational

[@Tuzsuz12]

5:00 this trick sounds better as "hologram technique"

[@Dominik-Enrivell]

2:35 Holy Ellie☺️♥️

[@Ri_5475]

The details in this game beyond impressive, this game deserves no hate, I love everything about it

[@hsd287]

Not us they used all of this power for a pathetic story

[@embrasil]

7:28 If somebody send me a picture of this low poly npcs and say it that was TLOU 2 I would never believe

[@joker_views]

the Close Up Camera Teleport also happens when Abby fights the Brute in New Haven, that one is very noticeable

[@AbrahamLure]

Did you watch all of ND's GDC talks? They cover some really cool techniques, some of which you've pointed out in this vid. Can't wait to see more!

[@Speclizer]

yep! I watched some of them. I'm always amazed watching those videos, the amount of effort that goes into the smallest of details...

[@AbrahamLure]

@@Speclizer there's some great ones on how they do their animations and a really in depth one that covers the snow. I watched one recently that showed how they make falling rain look like it's running down people's faces and stuff super realistic. Blew my mind because some of the tech they use isn't necessarily cutting edge, but instead really clever and well thought out implementation. Happy to DM you and chat more about them! (I used to be in the games industry and have attended their talks and workshops for a few years now)

[@AbrahamLure]

@@Speclizer this one just dropped! kzbin.info/www/bejne/mHbNhnx-esp-h7c

[@1995robin]

Hey I wanna say I enjoy your videos a lot! The music are the editing are 10/10

[@lsousa5174]

the specific camera angles part looks like the characters are acting like they are in real life, specially the scene where’s ellie is “killing” nora

[@MakotoIchinose]

*taking notes intensifies* Seriously, can't wait to apply those in my Unreal Engine 4 project.

[@tyhollow]

Kudos on the quality, animations and graphics of your video, very well done!

[@Speclizer]

Thank you!

[@msampson2286]

i love how they are in the exact same clothes as when ellie last saw her in the theatre

[@foxtatertot]

The fact that Abby and Lev's models are actually used for the Rattlers is so cool.

[@hsd287]

Ya they probably thought it's better to reuse the animation after inversion since we wouldn't guess about it 😂

[@dwindeyer]

3:00 I don't think the blur is to hide the 2D lights, they could have easily put normal looking lights there. The shape of the lights is to emulate a high quality looking bokeh effect which usually takes a lot more resources to compute. It's actually a really interesting optimisation using art assets. You can tell this is the reason because some of the "lights" have the same shape but a lower intensity to emulate a light not facing directly towards the camera, which would result in a lower luminance but still be the same size bokeh.

[@timothee621]

Amazing vid keep learning things about this game that amaze me every time. Btw how do you change the camera angle like that ?

[@BDJoe07]

Wow really interesting techniques, I was really frustrated for fake interiors, I search the entrence of buildings but without result 😂

[@EbonySeraphim]

This is fairly normal (expected) stuff to be going on if you're familiar with real time graphics rendering since the mid 2000s (PS3/XBox360 generation). The standouts for me are the interior mappings of the buildings. This is entirely opposite of what used to be common in outdoor game before draw distances and poly counts were high enough: skyboxes for distant scenery. Now the "skybox" is an interior box through windows with nothing really behind them. Pretty hilarious that over time the technique's purpose is opposite. That being said, it's probably less of a computationally expensive budget savings as opposed to a resources actively loaded budget issue. As a player, when you enter building the game is certainly streaming the interior and unloading the exterior on the fly. I think most of us know this at this point but the game has no load time when played "in sequence" because it knows where/where to unload resources and when to load them. That's why if you load a save in a completely different area you incur a huge load time. Also, parallax mapping is an evolution of what used to be called "bump mapping" from the late 90s. Using it for deep snow effects is wild because it most typically was used for textured surfaces like brick walls, or stone pebble streets -- things that didn't stick out much, but 6 inches of snow is impressive. What the developers knew and controlled for is that they'd never be using the rendering technique on surfaces you could get the camera at such a high incident angle to see things flatten out like was demonstrated. Also, what is different from the usages before is that bump/parallax mapping used to not be dynamic. There's a "texture" (or shader resource) in the game that has the record of where the player has walked which is the parallax map. That may not have been possible before some version of shader model and updating resources from the CPU to the GPU. It's entirely possible or likely this update isn't even every frame and has a low resolution. The close up teleportation camera is cool too. I definitely noticed that while playing the game. I knew the close up sequences couldn't play out based on exactly where the player landed the hits and replayed myself and noticed the effect of zooming in and spinning around making it hard to notice a teleport going on. The first time you play, you focus on the game / action that it doesn't pull you out. Not a rendering thing, but a great artistic/director technique. A game development class college professor of mine said that collision detection doesn't need to be real/accurate -- it's more important that it convinces the player that it's was accurate and fair. Similar could be said here -- the player position doesn't need to be true, they just need to be convinced that it is.

[@charliewagner6387]

Expected "Protip: have lots of money" but damn that POM snow shader is INSANE. Also, would have been nice to show how the closeup camera teleport works with the ingame view.

[@Engineering541]

i love this type of videos keep it up spec

[@fatem4096]

Amazing! And would you tell me the name of the song which is playing at 3:01please?

[@Speclizer]

Crooked Still - Little Sadie

[@fatem4096]

@@Speclizer thanks

[@liliannetoo27]

OMG, congratulations this videos is so amazing ❤️❤️

[@DannysHauntedJourney]

I hope people know that most all of these are common. You always set dress for the camera, and you hide what is too expensive to accomplish. I mean, I do exactly this for a living.

[@Artanicman]

What is the music called at 5:14?

[@captaincodypotato8386]

The interiors thing was awesome

[@crypeton]

This is a great way to optimizer their game to get decent frame rate. Most developers should learn this

[@alexleontyev6493]

Thank you bro for. The content for Tlou 2 that you are doing for us continue in the same spirit, my friend )

[@elliesfingersatthebottomof5887]

i appreciate your videos so much, thank you❤🌿

[@pfistner9542]

The rooms in the skyscraper, Spider-Man 2018 did this as well👀

[@mikaelandersson7463]

Very good video ceep it up with your work and the other people that helped you good job.

[@mattithun4813]

In TLOU Part 1 you can find the developers's names on the dawn of the wolf poster in sarah's room. Maybe also in TLOU Part 2

[@jeffextreme5498]

Love this. Thanks so much. Really informative.

[@sandansaiyan5675]

6:43 I knew about it technique but here it looks like stop motion animation instead of low fps characters

[@Proxio]

I love this content Keep making more Hope the best for you

[@egormerkushev]

How do you enable this free camera mode?

[@deppygurl_megh7576]

Can you please show us where ellie was when joel and tommy came in with the horses at the beginning?

[@itz_laloTTV]

I love Your channel keep it up man:)

[@shadow_of_the_jaguar]

5:00 a a billboard 2d tree is it to save resources ? or save time to create the game. To avoid creating 3d trees

[@Speclizer]

They already have a huge amount of 3D tree assets that they reuse throughout the game so it's mainly just to save on resources.

[@jaaaaaaaaaaaaaay]

So your comupter doesnt fking die

[@demitriwastaken6521]

i love watching these

[@Savi-digital]

This is one of those game series that you NEVER get tired of playing…I can’t wait for part lll 🔥🥵 I really enjoyed the hell out this game, it IS truly a masterpiece.

[@janekaito2473]

I want more video like this ! Incredible ! Thx u so much for this

[@JustinTheVlogger]

The Last of Us 1 and 2 are the backbone of all the next gen playstation consoles.

[@revelationluke3097]

The lights are not 2D they're low poly hexagonal meshes... you can use an infinite amount without taking too much space

[@viniciusvmrx2845]

I believe they rotate facing the camera as well as the fireshooting effects.

[@RyderCash-d2x]

ITS CALLED SPRITES EVERYBODY

[@_l3m35_]

Wow, really didn't know the interior mapping, pretty cool trick.

[@Itsabell4]

Nice video, as always❤️

[@akirekory1277]

I adore this channel !!!!

[@matthew.maduli]

2nd one felt like a Disney Imagineer trick honestly lol

[@bunniesplaymc100]

What's the song at 4:22?

[@Speclizer]

The Choice

[@IiTzSeraphim]

How do you make the camera move like that

[@lavemodisco]

I always drop a like even before the video start

[@Speclizer]

Thank you! 😁

[@Johncarter0284]

AWESOME!! Please give us moreeee 🥰🥰🥰

[@fabianoperes2155]

6:34 It's NOT lower quality. Just lower fps. This is REALLY diferent. Lower quality would mean the animation is bad. The low fps animation kind of gives it a cartoonish style. I like that.

[@tvirus9369]

Cd Projeckt Red really needs to takes some serious notes from this

[@bache021]

How do u do that in photo mode whenever I use it it only targets Ellie or Abbie

[@elliejoel475]

The Last Of Us Part II is best masterpiece of eighth generation! The Last Of Us Part II is so deeply emotional roller coaster masterpiece... The Last Of Us Part II has best cinematic narrative, best technique, best audio design, best texture, best lighting, best graphics, best animation, best mimic animations, best color palette, so good AI, best melee, best TP using-weapon, best realistic gameplay, perfect level design, best concept design, so good gameplay diversity, so impressive written lore, “so deep, so creative, so philosophic, so emotional and very very well-written script”, very very well-written characters...

[@matin793]

Facts

[@elliejoel475]

@@derek2802 I looked other your comments. So, you are illogical and you are totally wrong... You just try to bag on people who love “The Last Of Us Part II the emotional roller coaster masterpiece”. The Last Of Us Part II is best masterpiece of eighth generation. And loving is subjective, feelings are subjective, even life itself is subjective in a way... And you just try to heat the people up. So, what’s the matter with you? Being a illogical fool? You are destitute of self-criticism, empathy, viewpoints and “respect”. You know... You are foolish hater... And stfu and get lost!! And first rule of polemics is “Never and never discuss with fools.”.

[@peterpiper57]

@@derek2802 you’re just responding to every comment like this. You constantly hating on the game won’t change the fact that you can’t get it off your mind lmao

[@krasmasov6852]

@@derek2802 You come across as really desperate.

[@blainesavage9547]

I get sad every time I watch these kind of vids, because every time I’m watching something interesting I’m trying not to cry from ye music

[@beans2728]

Lev looked like how he did in Seattle because she never fully brought him to mind only ABBY

[@mryoung6090]

What are you saying?

[@mryoung6090]

@@r3zuri oh ok

[@beans2728]

@@mryoung6090 it means ellie doesnt care what Lev would look like now only Abby

[@pn-nu7pd]

man these are smart. technology and art combined :0

[@kadirsugar7894]

AWESOME video👏👏