Nvidia recently rolled out the Ansel driver update alongside VR Funhouse, its intimidating and hardware-demanding virtual reality demo.
The first title to support Ansel is Mirror's Edge Catalyst, and the results of combining the photo mode and the exquisite title are eye-watering.
"Imagine a photograph with the resolution of a thousand iPhone 6s," said Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia CEO, during Ansel's debut presentation in May.
Now, imagine that featuring scenes from Mirror's Edge Catalyst's sharp-looking universe.
By pressing Alt + F2 while within the game, gamers can tap into Ansel's capabilities. This causes the fast-paced action to stop, while a panel slides in from the left providing control over the screenshot's parameters. Users can toy around with a lot of variables, from filters to contrast and vignetting settings.
What is completely mind-boggling is the degree of 3D movement of the camera, which provides extended composition control. Seeing how Mirror's Edge Catalyst is fundamentally a first-person game, it is a welcome change to take a third-person look at your character.
By using the standard WASD keyboard-and-mouse controls, you can detach the camera from Faith's body and frame third-person shots featuring her doing badass stuff.
Another plus of Ansel lies in shareability. It is easy to save full-resolution .png files right to your hard drive instead of going through the non-intuitive file system of rival platforms, such as Sony's PlayStation 4 photo-mode. For those perfectionist gamers who find Ansel's own tools unsatisfying, there's also the option to export the screenshot in OpenEXR format for tweaking later in Photoshop or other image editing tools.
What is more, Ansel is the first photo mode that lets you take 360-degree shots and enjoy them in virtual reality.
Those on a budget can download the Android app Nvidia VR Viewer, which works wonderfully with Google Cardboard. Alternatively, owners of Oculus Rift or HTC Vive can also dig into the 360-degree images. Keep in mind that the latter option asks you to shell out $14.99 for the Virtual Desktop app. A helpful guide to how to view your 360-degree screenshots in VR is available on GeForce's page.
Needless to say, Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a great front-runner for the full-circle panoramic feature because of its gorgeous cityscapes.
However, there are some drawbacks to Ansel's functionality, and the biggest of them all has to do with key binding. With a game as fast-paced and dynamic as Mirror's Edge Catalyst, it is sometimes difficult to catch the perfect shot via the apparently unique Ansel launching shortcut Alt + F2. By comparison, PlayStation 4 games allowed gamers to press the analog sticks in order to switch to photo modes.
Another place where Ansel could use some tweaking is the inability to control certain parameters, such as depth of field.
Despite Mirror's Edge Catalyst being the only game that currently supports Ansel, Nvidia touts that other AAA titles such as No Man's Sky, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, Unreal Tournament, The Division, The Witness, Paragon, Obduction, LawBreakers and Fortnite are in tow.
Keep in mind that for Ansel to run on your rig, you will need a GTX 770M Nvidia GPU or newer.
