How about a new Wii tech discussion thread? (Games Analysis)
- Thread starter DeadlyNinja
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No, a lot of XBOX shaders can't be implemented. That is, some could be implemented, but would require much more GPU cycles or even polygon multipassing. Some shaders can be "emulated", such as using 2D normalmapping instead of dot3 (and live with the errors). TEV is quite flexible but in the end it's likely you still walk into a dead end preventing you from completing your shader. That dot3 technique I mentioned for example works great. But there is no way to normalize the light vectors before dotting since all is done using texture coordinates. This results in some kind of orthonogal lighting, no good for specular highlights. A few minor changes to the design of TEV, such as being able to select separate color channels from intermediate color registers, would make implementing a dot3 in TEV a breeze. Currently, to perform a real dot3 with a interpolated normalized light vector requires at least 8 cycles. That kills your fillrate.
The Conduit (I bought it a few months ago since it was only 20 euros) seems to use a lot of different cheaper effects. A bit disappointing actually. A lot of simple reflection mapping. The environment's detail mapping might be emboss mapping just as well (I don't expect it being dot3). Very few dynamic lights. Prebaked shadowmaps. Also, specular highlighting in their dot3 mapping seem to be camera orientation based instead of position based. Still, I like its overall polish, they did put a lot of effort in it. I hope the Conduit2 will feature at least 2D normal mapping+specular on the environment and some filtered dynamic shadowmapping.
GTA4 wouldn't be possible on Wii. Lack of memory in the first place. A scaled down version could work though. See No more heroes for example.
@Swaaye and Arwin: At first I didn't understand that at all. We see that some stylized wii titles look good. But why? What's the difference between cartoony and realistic? I'd be fooled to say just a bunch of textures. It's not like the Wii outputs stylized graphics by default. But saying that realistic graphics get dated very quickly makes sense. RE4 looked good when it came out but today it lacks normalmapping. Doom3 was realistic when it came out, but today it lacks softshadows.
DeadlyNinja
Veteran
sssst.... You'll destroy great theories with that kind of remarks
No but ofcourse, a bad implementation of a technique that is supposed to be more realistic, can look worse than a technique that is supposed to be functional. I don't think we currently have much games that still rely on stencil based shadow volumes right? Shadowmapping seems so much more feasible to me.
"Soft shadows" isn't a specific technique, it refers to any technique that produces some sort of penumbra rather than hard shadow edges. It's perfectly possible to have adequate shadow map resolution for a particlular shadow (thus preventing aliasing), and still soften the edges through PCF, screen-space blurring, pre-filtering, etc. You can even use stencil shadows, and do some sort of screen-space blur to get soft edges.
Iron Tiger
Regular
So I've had a chance to play some Conker and just as I said before, it's an evolution of the Star Fox Adventures tech. It's got the same type of water with a warped RTT "reflection" of the character overlayed while swimming. Fur shaders are used liberally on characters (though not for grass as it was in SFA). There's some good dynamic lighting and occasional dynamic shadows which gives scenes more life and atmosphere, but the DoF effects have hard transitions and don't look as good as I remember in SFA. For the most part, I'm not seeing anything that shouldn't be possible on the Wii, but some of the dynamic lighting and shadows are of higher quality than anything I've seen on Wii so far.
Memory bandwidth is probably the most significant advantage. XBox had 6.4GB/s of bandwidth, while Wii has 8GB/s for system memory, 11.4GB/s for the frame/zbuffers and 15.6GB/s for the internal texture memory.
Memory capacity is better, and Wii's CPU is stronger (though that will be offset to a degree by XBox's better T&L)
I would also say that Wii will very likely have a significantly higher effective pixel fillrate, but really that also stems from the memory bandwidth advantage.
Memory capacity is better, and Wii's CPU is stronger (though that will be offset to a degree by XBox's better T&L)
I would also say that Wii will very likely have a significantly higher effective pixel fillrate, but really that also stems from the memory bandwidth advantage.
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I came back over here after seeing Jett Rocket. It really gave me some hope that the 3rd party devs are finally catching up to nintendo in the tech department before the Wii gets shelved and they get a whole new console. they have a tech blog up for it; http://jett-rocket.shinen.com/ seems they have custom tools for compressing the files and optimizing the effects. Hopefully they sell it to others.
The game is self seems like SMG meets "retched" and clank.
No More Heros 2 really gave me some hope for the wii. Real time cut scenes in your selected clothes are always nice and keep the player in the game. Even though the game slows down during the action it still looks good during the action.
The game is self seems like SMG meets "retched" and clank.
No More Heros 2 really gave me some hope for the wii. Real time cut scenes in your selected clothes are always nice and keep the player in the game. Even though the game slows down during the action it still looks good during the action.
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DeadlyNinja
Veteran
No direct feed of The Conduit 2 yet. I played Jett Rocket over at a friend's place and it looked amazing, but I doubt other developers will bother. They've churned out shovelware after shovelware for years, I don't think it's going to change. Shin'en just really talented, and they'll continue to make game on WiiWare that'll blow away anything in retail.
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