Arstechnica Write Up

[Silenti]

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-1.ars/2

Mainly on the CPU but contains some information on procedural synthesis.

 

[Wunderchu]

nice first post

 

[PARANOiA]

Love the article! Very good description for us dummies trying to fathom why I should like Xenos.

The writer seems to wax lyrical about the XBox a little, though, saying it wasn't a big investment, where X360 is. I would have thought the opposite, that Xbox was the bigger risk, X360 is a much safer game money-wise. I love Jet Set Radio Future and Orta, but I wouldn't have called Xbox a "hail mary pass" or a "touchdown".

 

[Riddlewire]

I think Microsoft is going to have a hard time evangelizing 'Procedural Everywhere!' to most developers. From my understanding, it really only provides strong benefits in certain situations. It seems like most developers would prefer to stick with what they know and just try to come up with their own solutions to 'art expense' problems.

I get the feeling that the X360 Cpu cores really are exactly identical to the PPE core in CELL. It seems like the real Secret Sauce is the L2 cache. Sounds interesting, but I get the feeling that such an impressive design will just go to waste due to the requirements of multi-platform development.

 

[jvd]

I dunno from what i've read it can be really usefull for some things and i'm sure as time goes on it will save the developers alot of money. So while the x360 may not be the platform that takes us through the procedural textures but it can be the one that lights the fire . Hopefully the ps3 can do this as well (i see some patent links in the article )

 

[Titanio]

Hopefully the ps3 can do this as well (i see some patent links in the article )

Obviously specific techniques patented by MS could not be used, but "procedural synthesis" is a very broad and open field. Cell would be ideal for this kind of stuff (better than X360's CPU, if only because of the greater headroom to accomodate such work), from what I know, and given the tight integration between RSX and Cell I'm sure it'll be encouraged.

 

[rabidrabbit]

The PS2 was already told to be able to generate procedurally objects.
In an old Edge magazine there was an interview with Phil Harrison where he spoke big words of procedural generation on PS2, and how that would make the future PS2 games.
Has there been one game that had used this tech in PS2?

 

[Fafalada]

Has there been one game that had used this tech in PS2?

I can 100% confirm at least one high profile title on PS2 used this. And another one will be out shortly.

And I don't mean these are the only example - I'm singling them out because they aren't doing your typical tree branch, grass blade etc. that everyone immediately thinks about when hearing "procedural content".
These two games actually procedurally generate whole buildings in a modern city-scape.

 

[Riddlewire]

Wasn't the 'Geotexturing' in the PS2 version of Splinter Cell: CT a type of procedural synthesis?

 

[DemoCoder]

Elite on the Commodore 64.

 

[Fafalada]

Elite on Apple 2 was first

But I imagine most people here are thinking of on-demand realtime synthesis(outputting snythesized data to rendering subsystem directly - same manner as you do with HOS or subdivision tesselation) - at least that's what I was referring to in my last post.

 

[Gubbi]

Off topic nitpick.

Elite on Apple 2 was first

Actually Elite on Acorn's BBC Micro was first (David Braben and Ian Bell wrote it on one).

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[j^aws]

Elite on Apple 2 was first
...

I believe Elite debuted on the BBC Micro first!

http://www.birdsanctuary.co.uk/elite/m.php

EDIT:

Gubbi beat me to it!

 

[Pugger]

Actually it also debuted on the Acorn Electron at the same time as the BBC Model B. I should know I was riddiculed in the 6 form as in computers class (yep you brought your own computer) everone owned a model B but I could only afford the Electron. If I remember correctly the Beeb was £399 and the Electron £199.

 

[ralexand]

That's an excellent article. I wonder are they using any of these techniques to create all those gnomes in Kameo.

 

[Titanio]

That's an excellent article. I wonder are they using any of these techniques to create all those gnomes in Kameo.

The gnomes are hand-crafted by artists, obviously. Putting thousands into the scene would be a geometry-instancing issue, I think, rather than procedural stuff.

 

[Diplo]

I believe Elite debuted on the BBC Micro first!

It did. However, it certainly didn't sport any procedural textures or, indeed, any textures at all as it was all wireframe. Perhaps DemoCoder is thinking about it's sequel, Frontier, which was one of the first games to use texture-mapping?

 

[arhra]

No, he's talking about the fact that most of the star systems/planets in the game were randomly generated, rather than being predesigned.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The Ars Technica article is talking about procedural geometry, not procedural textures. The idea of procedural anything did appear on Elite as the universe was procedurally generated. I think there were text RPG procedurally created before then. I've also used up my allocated ration of the word 'procedural' words in this post, so won't be able to say procedural until next week.

 

[Diplo]

Ahh, OK, that will teach me to comment before reading the article in question Though I do recall that Elite did feature at least some of the suns/planets/moons from our galaxy, though it would make sense to generate the rest (especially given the memory limitiations of the time).