What does Naughty Dog's engine get right? *spawn

[Laa-Yosh]

You can't really make any assumptions about Reach based on anything from Crysis... Especially "empty" scenes, as in no characters and weapons, no vehicles, no fire/smoke/plasma effects, and mostly sprite based trees...

 

[_phil_]

Plus Keep in mind that a fully defered render could potentially push twice the poly count of a light prepass since light prepass must submit polys twice.
That and counting polys without shader consideration (and many other factors ..) is prettty moot.

 

[Kittonwy]

I would add MSAA plus HDR -both effects were incompatible in most PC graphics cards back in 2005 for some reason and that's why I always admired the combined use of AA + HDR-, the colour, the textures and the ligthing in general.

I never played Uncharted games but I've watched some videos and the animations' transition appeared to be kind of jerky and jumpy at times though.

But that's the problem, it's hard to appreciate how well the animation blending works if you've never played a game like Uncharted 2, where the animations remain top-notch without ever interfering with a high level of responsiveness in player control required for a high quality multiplayer experience, makes Assassins Creed feel canned and RDR feel sluggish by comparison.

 

[(((interference)))]

Sounds quite a lot for what is shown.

Heres some results with ~1.7m polys frame.
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/8/6/6/1/5/1/custom3.jpg.jpg

This assimilation had about 1-1.2m polys frame.
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/8/6/6/1/5/1/pc3.jpg.jpg

Hmm, but that's mainly mountains which can have lower polycounts than a character model, and all the foliage will be transparencies except for the tree trunks right?.
There aren't any buildings or lots of small detailed objects in view either (like you see in Uncharted with all the decorator objects and debris everwhere).

If thats 1.7m polygons to render just that coast vista, surely Uncharted must be pushing far more than 1.2 m per scene

But U2 is heavily controlled due to linear gameplay. It's easy for devs to put lots of sprites and 2D textures to give impression of being 3D yet dont break illusion as you cant get into angle nor close enough to make it stand out badly. This greatly reduces amount of polygons needed. Then if Reach has terrain deformation (dont know if it has) that would greatly up terrain complexity and geometry amount.

It's linear gameplay, but in a lot of the levels you can actually get to much of what you see, ie. you will see a location early in a level and end up playing in it at a later point in time as you naturally move through the level.

And I also thought that the game would use 2D sprites or 'skyboxes' for the background environments but was quite surprised as most of the time the backgrounds are real geometry, eg. Kathmandu, the monastery or Shambala. I noticed very little in the way of 2D backgrounds

Compare the city in U2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WqNMgdzzjU

To the one in Reach:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY5bMGb4CVM

 

[Cyan]

It's not perfect, but I can think of no game with better animation than Uncharted 2.

As for AA + HDR, their resolve happens before tonemapping so it doesn't work very well. This is a hardware limitation of RSX if I recall correctly so it's hard to fault them, and it's certainly better than nothing.

It's not a limitation of RSX, that's just how most people do it. They do it this way because doing it the "right" way means doing your tonemapping step at subsample resolution, which in their case would double the cost (since they use 2xMSAA).

Obviously I can't say if this is a limitation of the RSX or not.

However I remember that back in 2005 AA + HDR weren't compatible effects in games, you just had to either choose AA or HDR, but never both at the same time. Only ATi graphics cards allowed both effects to run at the same time.

I must say that those days witnessed the death throes of my own PC gaming, and since then I developed an appreciation for ATi, along with the fact that they are Canadian. :smile:

I always considered this a feat for that very reason.

 

[Neb]

Hmm, but that's mainly mountains which can have lower polycounts than a character model, and all the foliage will be transparencies except for the tree trunks right?.
There aren't any buildings or lots of small detailed objects in view either (like you see in Uncharted with all the decorator objects and debris everwhere).

There are lots of small objects just not that visible in that angle and lighting condition. You also have to factor in vegetation density and things like grass, water mesh etc. I just picked this pic since it was in DF article but it's below the avg polygon count which is around avg 2m with peaks at 3m polys/frame depding on area and view height. The foliage while being transparencies still needs geometry to form mesh where transparency will be mapped onto. Vegetation in that pic accounts for around 0.7-1m polygons at that frame.

Now these pics aint representative of normal polygon count but it does show the objects complexity and how things add up. And if game have deformable terrain the terrain then needs a lot more polygons to allow for decent deformation (dont know if Reach has it but Crysis neither has it but it seems they thought about it but POM probably made it problematic).

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8797/geometrically.jpg
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/2092/visually.jpg

If thats 1.7m polygons to render just that coast vista, surely Uncharted must be pushing far more than 1.2 m per scene

Not really. It's easier to use this approach in highly linear games with pre-determinated path and places you cant reach. Things like 2D tree walls, low poly yet convincing looking buildings/objects in optimal angles with no need to use LOD. Also like someone else said sahders might add the requirement to draw more polygons.

See this pic it gives impression of dense city with good detail but geometry complexity is low.
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/8420/bfbc2s.jpg

This one is interesting to.
http://i45.tinypic.com/10pdo4n.jpg

It's linear gameplay, but in a lot of the levels you can actually get to much of what you see, ie. you will see a location early in a level and end up playing in it at a later point in time as you naturally move through the level.

But you still follow a highly pre-determinated path.

And I also thought that the game would use 2D sprites or 'skyboxes' for the background environments but was quite surprised as most of the time the backgrounds are real geometry, eg. Kathmandu, the monastery or Shambala. I noticed very little in the way of 2D backgrounds

Yeah seems so.

Compare the city in U2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WqNMgdzzjU

To the one in Reach:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY5bMGb4CVM

Quite different design layout but maybe Reachs requires rendering scene polygons twice? Dont know.

 

[Arwin]

But U2 is heavily controlled due to linear gameplay. It's easy for devs to put lots of sprites and 2D textures to give impression of being 3D yet dont break illusion as you cant get into angle nor close enough to make it stand out badly. This greatly reduces amount of polygons needed. Then if Reach has terrain deformation (dont know if it has) that would greatly up terrain complexity and geometry amount.

The linear gameplay is necessary not because of geometry complexity, but because of load-times. As for the number of polygons pushed, how do you even define that? The geometry complexity for scenes in some PS3 games can run into the 5-10 million, but the RSX never gets much more than one polygon per pixel to process. I don't have stuff for Uncharted 2 at hand, but for uncharted 1, from the PDF from the GDC presentation, all the stuff below is done on SPU in the first Uncharted:

Scene Travelers:

- Visibility frustum culling (SPU)
- PVS lookup (SPU)
- Sorting (PPU)
- Render set up (PPU)
- Mesh processing set up (SPU)

Mesh Processing

offloading RSX with SPUs:
- Decompression
- Skinning
- Back-face culling

Uncharted 2 did much more with the SPUs, though I don't know exactly what more it did in relation to this part of the rendering pipeline.

You can get a decent impression of the tech and the environments though if you look at the multi-player maps in cinema mode. When you move around you can sometimes clip through and see behind the geometry, and then you see that extremely little polygons are drawn unnecessarily.

 

[joker454]

The geometry complexity for scenes in some PS3 games can run into the 5-10 million, but the RSX never gets much more than one polygon per pixel to process.

Hmm, which game has 10 million poly's on a given scene? I've seen my share of gpad grabs over the years and don't ever recall seeing a number that high. Unless they are counting low cost stuff like shadow passes, etc, in that count?

 

[(((interference)))]

There are lots of small objects just not that visible in that angle and lighting condition. You also have to factor in vegetation density and things like grass, water mesh etc. I just picked this pic since it was in DF article but it's below the avg polygon count which is around avg 2m with peaks at 3m polys/frame depding on area and view height. The foliage while being transparencies still needs geometry to form mesh where transparency will be mapped onto. Vegetation in that pic accounts for around 0.7-1m polygons at that frame.

Now these pics aint representative of normal polygon count but it does show the objects complexity and how things add up. And if game have deformable terrain the terrain then needs a lot more polygons to allow for decent deformation (dont know if Reach has it but Crysis neither has it but it seems they thought about it but POM probably made it problematic).

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8797/geometrically.jpg
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/2092/visually.jpg




Not really. It's easier to use this approach in highly linear games with pre-determinated path and places you cant reach. Things like 2D tree walls, low poly yet convincing looking buildings/objects in optimal angles with no need to use LOD. Also like someone else said sahders might add the requirement to draw more polygons.

See this pic it gives impression of dense city with good detail but geometry complexity is low.
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/8420/bfbc2s.jpg

This one is interesting to.
http://i45.tinypic.com/10pdo4n.jpg




But you still follow a highly pre-determinated path.



Yeah seems so.



Quite different design layout but maybe Reachs requires rendering scene polygons twice? Dont know.

Thanks for explaining that, quite interesting that a seemingly simple looking scene can actually be more complex than a city environment.

What really impressed me about Uncharted was the amount of detail they've managed to retain despite the size of the environments - I don't think i've seen anything quite like it. They have lots of detailed decorator objects in the foreground but still have long draw distances with geometry backgrounds, Reach by comparison has big environments but they're mostly empty and they use 2D backgrounds quite frequently as well.

So it's quite strange to see Uncharted trumping a Halo game where expansive environments is something of a series trademark.
For example take the on-rails Falcon gunner section of Exodus which is really not doing much in terms of environment detail.

But is it generally true that the PS3 can push more geometry than the 360, because of the SPUs?

 

[Turok]

Thanks for explaining that, quite interesting that a seemingly simple looking scene can actually be more complex than a city environment.

What really impressed me about Uncharted was the amount of detail they've managed to retain despite the size of the environments - I don't think i've seen anything quite like it. They have lots of detailed decorator objects in the foreground but still have long draw distances with geometry backgrounds, Reach by comparison has big environments but they're mostly empty and they use 2D backgrounds quite frequently as well.

So it's quite strange to see Uncharted trumping a Halo game where expansive environments is something of a series trademark.
For example take the on-rails Falcon gunner section of Exodus which is really not doing much in terms of environment detail.

But is it generally true that the PS3 can push more geometry than the 360, because of the SPUs?

http://level-design.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/vaccaroAnthony_haloReach_boardwalk3.jpg

Looks pretty polygonally dense to me.

 

[matthias]

I haven't played AC, so I need to ask a question. Did the main charater have a lot of static objects (i.e. stable buildings, ledges, ground, trains where only the background moves, etc.) to traverse or were they dynamic objects? Traversal of dynamic objects requires additional calculations. I don't know if any 3rd party titles that use the sheer amount of animations over dynamic surfaces.

In AC? No, iirc there are not a lot of moving objects you can traverse. But in GTA4 you can jump and stand on cars, trucks and busses. I also tried to jump on top of a subway train, but this killed me everytime instantly. But it works in RDR where you can jump on top of the train an ride it (the centrifugal force is turned off in this case).

 

[Laa-Yosh]

UC2 had the train, the collapsing building, the truck chase, and maybe the collapsing bridge, where you had to traverse dynamic objects, right? Four or five, very limited, but mandatory linear sequences...
I agree that the tech is very good there, but you make it sound a lot less limited and restricted than it actually was.

 

[Rotmm]

.....where you had to traverse dynamic objects, right?....

I don't know if any element of scenery that needed to be traversed in Uncharted 2 could be considered dymanic. For example, the Train wasn't moving, the scenery was. The effect created was cool looking, but limited in that the train was the same 'speed' and behaved the same way at all times. Effectively it was a very narrow fixed corridor.

The same for the collapsable scenery (buildings, etc) scenes. Those were directed, not dymanic, and therefore there were no unknowns in Drakes traversal for the programmers, designers and animators.

I certianly don't recall any properly dynamic scenery in Uncharted 2.

 

[N_B]

I don't know if any element of scenery that needed to be traversed in Uncharted 2 could be considered dymanic. For example, the Train wasn't moving, the scenery was. The effect created was cool looking, but limited in that the train was the same 'speed' and behaved the same way at all times. Effectively it was a very narrow fixed corridor.

No, the train was actually moving through the scenery:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/among-friends-how-naughty-dog-built-uncharted-2

"We didn't want to go down the same route that videogame train levels had taken in the past where the train is actually static and the ground is scrolling by, creating the illusion of movement," Lemarchand explains.

"We wanted to do it for real... gameplay ideas like these in pre-production can drive the technology part of the game. This level was one of the first we conceived and one of the last that we completed and it drove an enormous chunk of the new technology we created for Uncharted 2."

One of the centrepiece tech components was a system dubbed by the team as the "dynamic object traversal system", which essentially allowed Drake and all the other characters in the game to use their moves and combat techniques on any moving object or environment.

 

[messyman]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the train was actually moving and not the scenery behind it.

 

[Rotmm]

No, the train was actually moving through the scenery

You're right, my bad. I even recall reading that back in the day

However, that doesn't change the basic fact that the train environment is a known known, not a dynamic environment. There is not a single piece of scenery that Drake has to deal with that has not been put there by the artists. Indeed, I would go further and say that neither the gentle rocking of the train not the carriages with the convex roofs alter the handling of Drake from standard flat, non-rocking.

So while I'm not going to argue with ND stating that Drake has been programmed to react to a dymanic environment, there is little to no truly dynamic (ie: random) environmental changes in the game to challenge that.

 

[Arwin]

So while I'm not going to argue with ND stating that Drake has been programmed to react to a dymanic environment, there is little to no truly dynamic (ie: random) environmental changes in the game to challenge that.

The final section with the collapsing bridge, if I remember correctly that was dynamic? It's been a while though so I could be mistaken. Of course there are also quite a number of destructable objects, but yeah, if they made the system, there's not that much that really showcases it (the bridge scene is what I remember best personally).

 

[Toaddio]

UC2 had the train, the collapsing building, the truck chase, and maybe the collapsing bridge, where you had to traverse dynamic objects, right? Four or five, very limited, but mandatory linear sequences...
I agree that the tech is very good there, but you make it sound a lot less limited and restricted than it actually was.

Welcome to the real world. Very rarely do people attach flotation devices to their feet and attempt to walk on water.