A tiny Heavenly Sword update

T

Titanio

Legend
I got my issue of Edge late this month, but tucked away in the back is a one page profile on Ninja Theory. There's a little snippet on what they're doing at the moment with HS on PS3, that had a couple of interesting tidbits of info:

"Ninja Tech has been built from the ground up to target next-generation systems. As one of the first announced Playstation3 developers our technology is uncompromisingly focused on squeezing the best out of that platform, putting us at the forefront of realtime rendering technology.

We currently have complex pixel shaders, a full atmospheric model, full-scene dynamic shadowing, HDR lighting, tone mapping, parallax mapping, internal lens reflection and depth-of-field all in hi-def resolution running in realtime.

We are researching Cell-based procedural systems for hair, cloth, clouds, water, weather and vegetation to transform our gaming world into a vibrant living vision of gorgeousness.

Our full-on combat system works against highly skilled individual AI, against coordinated squads of enemies, all the way through to army scenarios. The Havok physics engine is being used to push character interaction within the world and within combat to unprecedented levels."

Sounds yummy! Interesting to hear more of their usage of Cell too (and making things look "gorgeous" works for me :)).

The article also mentions the team is currently made up of 34 members - and is about to double shortly.

Hopefully we'll catch sight of this again soon?!
 
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Our full-on combat system works against highly skilled individual AI, against coordinated squads of enemies, all the way through to army scenarios.
Click to expand...

Very interesting this part, I would like to hear more about it, and how to make a good individual AI that it is also good in squads/army.
 
I'd guess the level of AI scales with numbers. On a one-on-one level the AI is probably quite advanced, on an army-scale, individual AI is likely less advanced. Co-operative enemy AI in the smaller "squads", perhaps? I'd say you could vary the level of AI in the army scenes, though, so guys away from you don't need to be very sophisticated, whereas the ones closer to you, that you're currently engaging, can be more sophisticated. The "army-level" combat though is likely to be very frantic as per the E3 trailer, so I imagine they take that into account when determining what level of sophistication is required in such scenarios.

My one hope, though, is that in such scenes with large numbers, those near you at least don't all look like they're moving in lock-step with one another. That's a symptom I've noticed in all of these games with tonnes of units on screen. It's very easy to spot repeating animation and action. I imagine it's a very difficult problem to solve, but it'd be nice if the guys around you, in your immediate vincinity at least, had a greater deal of variety/uniqueness in their behaviour to mask that problem a bit. When I look at some of the games using similar techniques, I'm just always reminded of flocking algorithms and all the units just seem to be told to gravitate towards one point (the player), and that's it. Something a little better, a little less predictable and monotonous would be nice - doesn't have to be a general solution for all the units, but just enough to help suspend the disbelief of picky bastards like me ;)
 
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Titanio said:
internal lens reflection
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Isn't that just a little excessive? ;)
And if they have got internal lens reflection, can they set the lens material, extra coatings, and element constucts of the lens? How's about DOF aperture shape?

Certainly sounds very good and this should be a key title if launched early in the system's life. The only obvious thing lacking is any mention of AA, though if they're running at 1080p they can obviously get AA for lower resolutions.

And I guess Deano's got his shadows working properly now :D If only they were free to talk more about how working on PS3 is. :(
 
Titanio said:
We currently have complex pixel shaders, a full atmospheric model, full-scene dynamic shadowing, HDR lighting, tone mapping, parallax mapping, internal lens reflection and depth-of-field all in hi-def resolution running in realtime.
Click to expand...
So I guess they chose HDR rather than AA. :D

We are researching Cell-based procedural systems for hair, cloth, clouds, water, weather and vegetation to transform our gaming world into a vibrant living vision of gorgeousness.

Our full-on combat system works against highly skilled individual AI, against coordinated squads of enemies, all the way through to army scenarios. The Havok physics engine is being used to push character interaction within the world and within combat to unprecedented levels."
Click to expand...
This game is sounding even more lovely everytime I hear something new about it.
 
I think MS was dumb for not picking this game up when they had the chance!

From what I understand, this game was further along than most PS3 titles and it was going to take until fall 2006. Any truth to that Deano?
 
simple question: When "complex shaders" are mentioned, do they actually involve complex numbers (x+jy etc.)?

double the staff? :oops: Artists?
 
EpicZero said:
So I guess they chose HDR rather than AA. :D
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Not really, we still dont know if RSX is able to do both HDR and FSAA at the same time.
OR the HDR could be rendered on Cell, like it is on the Getaway PS3 demo's.
 
Alstrong said:
simple question: When "complex shaders" are mentioned, do they actually involve complex numbers (x+jy etc.)?
Click to expand...

Ahah, that's a good one !

no. Complex shaders just means they are probably more than ten lines long (one hundred ? two hundred instructions slots ? without more precisions we can only guess).
 
Aa

I heard that Nvidia guy talked about doing software AA so perhaps they want AA on CELL? If so, then perhaps RSX cannot do HDR and AA and so no texture AA as in 7800GTX? Anyone know the answers?
 
Im glad that PS3 has Heavenly Sword.. because this is game is the one that I look forward the most on the machine, it looks even better than MGS4, from a artistic standpoint (I think). Besides, im not such a fan of the MGS-series either... hopefully, HS will have as sweet gameplay as the gfx, then we are in for a super nice treat.

Any chance that this title is a release-title for the PS3 here in EU?
 
EndR said:
Any chance that this title is a release-title for the PS3 here in EU?
Click to expand...

I would think that a certainty unless Sony is planning to surprise us as to when the Euro launch will be ;) (i.e. late 06 and no earlier seems likely for EU, and I'd wager HS is targetting that kind of timeframe, as a launch title for the US and EU)
 
Titanio said:
I'd guess the level of AI scales with numbers.(...)
Click to expand...

I have no idea, but considering that both need diferent kind of tatics (meybe not very different once that is melee combat mostly, I think), it should take a lot of work to get nice AI inevery aspect of the game, unless they share the same/some betwen both modes.

Anyway I would love to know more about it.
 
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