Released in June 2016, Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst is a prequel to 2008’s Mirror’s Edge – a first-person parkour simulator. The game puts you in the shoes of Faith – a courier, rooftop runner and an expert in urban traversal.
Set in a highly stylized environments of the city of Glass, the title is certainly a looker. At the time of its launch, it was also the very first title to support nVidia’s new Ansel technology – a suite of tools for advanced in-game photography.
Among other things, Ansel allows players to capture stereoscopic 360° (VR) stills of their gameplay in glorious 8K resolution. You didn’t have to ask me twice.
I picked up the game during a Summer sale and as I progressed through my 35+ hour playthrough I captured some of the more interesting scenes.
You can watch the quick slideshow in the video below. Due to current codec and platform limitations, it’s rendered in 4K and can be watched either in mono or stereo. You can also check out the images on Kuula. The service supports 8K resolution, but at the cost of losing the stereoscopy and going mono. For highest fidelity, simply download the zip file at the bottom of this page and use any viewer of your choice. It looks pretty awesome on HTC Vive, viewed through Virtual Desktop.
YouTube
Accompanied by original score from the game itself, composed by Solar Fields, this 4 minute video is a quick slideshow of all the captures. You can watch it in mono on a computer or a mobile device, or (recommended) switch to stereo using Google cardboard. Whichever way you pick – remember that you can look around by either moving your device, or dragging the image with your mouse or finger.
If the player below behaves erratically, here’s a direct link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLQi8-NqHZk
Due to the nature of H.264 compression and YouTube’s recommendations, I had to scale down the images to approximately 35% of the original capture size. For higher quality, read on.
Kuula
If you are willing to sacrifice the stereoscopy and depth perception for higher pixel count, I have uploaded all of my screenshots to my Kuula account. They even come with fancy lens flares!
More
If you enjoyed the look and art direction of Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst, you may also want to check these series of time-lapse videos I captured using Frostbite Cinematic Tools.
Better yet – play the game yourself. You can find more information on the game and where to buy it at: http://www.mirrorsedge.com/
As for other 360° captures – I will most likely tackle The Witcher 3 next, followed by No Man’s Sky, whenever they implement the long-promised support for Ansel.
1 Comment
Add comment
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Hi, I tried downloading the HQ package, but the Google Drive link is broken (it’s been 18 months since the post, after all). Could you please reupload and possibly provide a MEGA/MediaFire mirror(s)?
Thanks and I’m looking forward to more 360 Stereo shots and other VR stuff from you!