Range of graphics effects in console games *spawn

I guess I'll have to wait and see when it's out, but I honestly don't think there's a game out there that comes even remotely close to the face acting (I didn't know what else to call it) in LA Noire. I imagine the details Laa-Yosh is getting are correct, so obviously it wouldn't work in the majority of games, besides all the other problems Laa-Yosh has outlined. Sounds like it wouldn'teven work in Rockstar's own, which is very disappointing to me. I was hoping they'd use it in the next GTA or Red Dead game.
 
Yes, the facial acting is good, because it's basically a video recording of the actor but in 3D instead of 2D. The capture tech is not part of the engine, the capture hardware is not part of the engine - what's there is the replay tech, which is not too complicated. It's basically a brute force solution.
 
Yes, the facial acting is good, because it's basically a video recording of the actor but in 3D instead of 2D. The capture tech is not part of the engine, the capture hardware is not part of the engine - what's there is the replay tech, which is not too complicated. It's basically a brute force solution.

Yeah, I watched the vids on how it was all done. I guess I just didn't realize how major it was to implement. Most games are going to some kind of texture streaming system, so losing that just to have the animated faces is a pretty huge loss.
 
Do we have a link to Bungie's GDC presentation on imposters?

GDC is next week. :p But here's the description:

This presentation introduces the LoD system created for HALO: REACH. The basic idea is to use a low-res vertex-shaded model to render far away objects. It starts with a voxel-based geometry decimation which can robustly simplify the geometry of game objects. We also designed a BRDF-fitting module, which can fit the many complicated material models used in our game to a simplified general material model. Both geometry and material simplification are farm-based. It is a fully automated LoD pipeline for content production, which massively reduced the workload of the content team, and boosted runtime performance significantly.
With these polygon metrics, Bungie is on record saying that Reach can push 4m more polygons than Halo 3 could:
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/11/x10-halo-reach-demoed-will-be-the-definitive-halo/

Is that accurate? Does that figure come with caveats or are they just BS,which would be strange as it was mentioned in a Vidoc (which you'd hope would be vetted).
I'm really not sure what that's referring to really. I believe the legendary commentary for the game mentioned 4x more polys & draw distance. Could have been a misquote unless they're talking about total for assets.

It'd be interesting to know what console game pushes the most triangles? Does the PS3 have an advantage with using the SPUs for processing geometry?
SPUs are for packaging and culling. RSX still has to set them up and render.
 
GDC is next week. :p But here's the description:


I'm really not sure what that's referring to really. I believe the legendary commentary for the game mentioned 4x more polys & draw distance. Could have been a misquote unless they're talking about total for assets.

Ah ok - the first Vidoc for Reach:
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Halo:_Reach_ViDoc:_Once_More_Unto_the_Breach

Also says it's 4x polys of Halo 3, so what, are we looking at around 4 million? Is it reasonable to assume Halo 3 was pushing around a million triangles per frame? I mean it did have pretty large environments and lots of characters on screen.

SPUs are for packaging and culling. RSX still has to set them up and render.

So you're saying the 360 can theoretically push more geometry than the PS3?
What would you say are the titles pushing the most geometry, Banjo Kazooie N&B? Open world games like AC2, GTA4?
 
So you're saying the 360 can theoretically push more geometry than the PS3?
Yeah, your basic setup rate is theoretically 500Mtris/s vs 250M.

What would you say are the titles pushing the most geometry, Banjo Kazooie N&B? Open world games like AC2, GTA4?
It's not just asset polycounts as you'll also need to consider multi-pass & shadow rendering or other effects. I wouldn't be able to answer for displayed polygons since I haven't played everything, nor do I count poly's. :p The game with the most characters I've ever seen would be Ninja Gaiden 2 in the coloseum. *shrug*
 
I think they were talking about how the individual assets have received the upgrade, like Master Chief was ~6000 polygons and the new spartan models are 4 times as detailed.

It is very unlikely that the actual rendered triangle count has been increased that much, especially with the impostor system in place (the main reason for using such a tech is to reduce total rendered polygon count). The individual assets may be more detailed in their highest LODs, but you rarely get to see more then one of those models in close-ups, they don't even fit on the screen or around the player.
Everything else is rendered in medium to low LOD levels, or as simple card if it's turned into an impostor.
 
I think Dead Rising beats it :p

You're sure? I was under the impression that Dead Rising 1 & 2 had limited world/game space, though I do recall the underground parking to be packed. I know the video is pretty fugly here, but the entire colosseum is packed with instanced werewolves. It was rather shocking at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lbPRQjjuCU&hd=1#t=6m53s

onwards from 6m53s, but especially 7:02 and during gameplay @ 8:04
 
You're sure? I was under the impression that Dead Rising 1 & 2 had limited world/game space, though I do recall the underground parking to be packed. I know the video is pretty fugly here, but the entire colosseum is packed with instanced werewolves. It was rather shocking at the time.

maybe it's my memory playing tricks on me or maybe in Dead Rising it was more in your face especially in this tunel witch leads you to the final boss battle and that's why I remembered it so well.
In Ninja Gaiden they'r just sitting there but yes it looks impressive in this video you have posted.
I played NG long time ago ;)

I found a video of that level but it is really dark and bad quality


sorry for my english I hope it's not that big of a problem :p
 
You're sure? I was under the impression that Dead Rising 1 & 2 had limited world/game space, though I do recall the underground parking to be packed. I know the video is pretty fugly here, but the entire colosseum is packed with instanced werewolves. It was rather shocking at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lbPRQjjuCU&hd=1#t=6m53s

onwards from 6m53s, but especially 7:02 and during gameplay @ 8:04

WOW, that's a really good player. Ninja Gaiden 2 certainly had its moments of graphical splendor, especially the last 3-4 chapters.:smile:
 
Yeah, your basic setup rate is theoretically 500Mtris/s vs 250M.

It's not just asset polycounts as you'll also need to consider multi-pass & shadow rendering or other effects. I wouldn't be able to answer for displayed polygons since I haven't played everything, nor do I count poly's. :p The game with the most characters I've ever seen would be Ninja Gaiden 2 in the coloseum. *shrug*

Oh really, twice as much? I thought it was the opposite - any reason games like KZ2/3, God of War, Uncharted etc seem to have more detailed environments than 360 titles? Or is it just good art? (But then even Mass Effect, Gears of War don't seem to have the kind of scope or fidelity in terms of their environments)
 
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Eh... ask the artists... or rather, base the comparison on polygon counts from the debug. I'm not getting sucked into some console war about what things are apparent or preferable to the end user. The dense forests in Gears of War 2 (including the crowd-heavy large scale levels) and Alan Wake are heavy on polys, same with the Ninja Gaiden 2 colosseum scene. You may want to give Gears of War 2 another go because you must be forgetting a lot of the large scale environments.
 
Oh really, twice as much? I thought it was the opposite - any reason games like KZ2/3, God of War, Uncharted etc seem to have more detailed environments than 360 titles? Or is it just good art? (But then even Mass Effect, Gears of War don't seem to have the kind of scope or fidelity in terms of their environments)

It's just good art. I've seen gpad grabs of various games and the poly counts are no where near as high as people think they are. Plus polycount is a very easy number to inflate without 'lying'. Additionally, it's very easy to fool people into thinking something is due to poly's when poly's have little to do with the image fidelity they are seeing. Finally, remember that rsx spec are theoritical possibles, and typically have little basis in reality.
 
It's just good art. I've seen gpad grabs of various games and the poly counts are no where near as high as people think they are. Plus polycount is a very easy number to inflate without 'lying'. Additionally, it's very easy to fool people into thinking something is due to poly's when poly's have little to do with the image fidelity they are seeing. Finally, remember that rsx spec are theoritical possibles, and typically have little basis in reality.

Yeah its a known fact that the 360's GPU can render more polys than the RSX

It is amazing how much effect can art have in the visuals.

It makes me wonder how they did it though. Some areas in those PS3 games appear to have incredible geometry and variety (even though they might not?).
 
Eh... ask the artists... or rather, base the comparison on polygon counts from the debug. I'm not getting sucked into some console war about what things are apparent or preferable to the end user. The dense forests in Gears of War 2 (including the crowd-heavy large scale levels) and Alan Wake are heavy on polys, same with the Ninja Gaiden 2 colosseum scene. You may want to give Gears of War 2 another go because you must be forgetting a lot of the large scale environments.

Oh yeah, Gears 2 on the derricks was pretty impressive and of course the landscapes in Alan Wake.

I guess just having played Uncharted 2 recently (and I was originally a skeptic), where you have vast, extremely ornate temples or cityscapes with lots of minor details made me wonder whether the PS3 can push more geometry than the 360 - as with 360 titles like Reach though the landscapes are big they tend to be quite empty with simple geometry, the environments in Uncharted even stand out compared to the caves/ underground environments in Gears 2.
But perhaps it's just great artwork and excellent use of normal mapping?

If so, that's interesting as then the only real advantages the PS3 has over the 360 are in terms of post processing quality (like MLAA, DoF) and physics and simulation, while the 360 should have the upper hand in things like textures, geometry, shaders (except perhaps with SPU shaders) and transparencies?

I did realise of course that the Xenos was far more capable than the RSX, but I thought it was more than compensated for by the Cell and so combined the PS3 had more shading power with the only real drawbacks to the PS3 architecture being the less available, split RAM and the lack of eDRAM.

So, really the 360 suffers from a lack of AAA exclusive devs pushing the hardware? And this is basically the major reason PS3 exclusives look better, rather than the inherent capabilities of either system. (as I have always suspected)
 
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I don't think you ready need AAA exclusive dev to push the hardware, I think multi platform games can push the hardware as well. Sure you need to build your game from the lowest common denominator but since 360 has unify memory and shaders, those extra head room can going into the game performance right? Like many multi plat games, you see more solid performance or extra graphical features on the system.
 
It's just good art. I've seen gpad grabs of various games and the poly counts are no where near as high as people think they are. Plus polycount is a very easy number to inflate without 'lying'. Additionally, it's very easy to fool people into thinking something is due to poly's when poly's have little to do with the image fidelity they are seeing. Finally, remember that rsx spec are theoritical possibles, and typically have little basis in reality.

I might even go further than "good art" by saying that it's all down to design. If you design a game with strict parameters, then you can do such things like push visual details or complexity over other aspects that require resources... it's really just a zero-sum game, where you win in one area, you will have to lose in another. You might be able to make people think you're winning more than losing, but that's the beauty of optimization.
 
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