article on wsj on nalu and ruby

jolle said:
another thing to remember is that the the demos are made with a purpouse.

Yes... and no. Most ATI demos seems very focussed on showcasing all the possibilities of their hardware. They also quite frequently stress their hardware pretty much. I remember the Ark was a big problem for my poor old Rage Magnum. Nature demo and that HalfLife like demo were in the same league. Seemed to showcase most of the new possibilities in the hardware.

But Dawn really didn't seem to showcase anything. Not anything technical anyway ;)

However, Dawn certainly had it's purpose... I think it was played more than any ATI demo!
 
well dawn was prolly supposed to showcase how you can use shaders on
making nice skin and that sort stuff, PS effects, and the facial features was
that perhaps VS stuff?..
it was a bit overtouted by Nvidia tho, specially when it turned out it could
run faster with a wrapper on ATI R3xx cards, hehe..

Tried running it on my 9700pro, maxed out AA and AF and still top notch
FPS, looks VERY nice with those settings btw...

still dont se the point of using Polycount in techdemos as "ammo" when
arguing which company is the best, as Ive seen at places....
 
Scarlet said:
I would like to see a good demo of normal mapping. Anyone have a link? I understand it is a good way to gain the effect of a lot of detail without a lot of work.
The only thing which has got less work with normalmapping is the GPU, the artists workload increases when you use this technique. Like jolle said, the process of normalmapping basically records the surface information (normals) of a high-poly model and stores it in a texturemap, which is then applied to a low-poly version of same model. That way you can have the shading and texturing detail of a much more high-poly model applied to a more manageble in-game model. As long as we can't push polygon numbers in the hundreds of millions in realtime, this is a convenient compromise. While Doom3 was the first game anounced to use this kind of technology, FarCry is so far the only retail game to use it...

Back on topic. As a current ATI and prior Nvidia user I can only say I see the merit in both types of tech demos. Nvidia is demonstrating quite impressively how far today's realtime graphics have come and what they are capable off. The modeling, animation and hair simulation of Nalu is extremely close to well done FMV or CG movie characters these days. It also demonstrates how far texturing and shading have advanced and that we are really catching up with the capabilities off offline rendering in that respect too. Of course characters quite as complex as her won't be feasible in an in-game environment anytime soon as you typically want dozens of characters on screen at once, that doesn't invalidate the demo though. Nvidia have also shown a number of other demos, some of them in more complex environments and more game-like scenarios.

Ruby on the other hand I have yet to see in action, so it is a lot harder to judge. I assume there will be an environment and some kind of action occuring with/around her, so it will be a little bit more applicable to a real game setting and hence probably be more interesting to watch too. You quickly see the compromise for that even in the few images available though, she looks like a plastic doll, with the typical short game-compromise haircut ... and inflatable lips. I'm not gonna argue looks though, both are perfectly attractive virtual women in their own right. Can't wait to really see the whole demo though, judging from ATI's R300 demos its gonna rock.

To me the more cool real-time demos I can see the better, doesn't matter which company produces them. Even the XNA demos from evil M$ are cool to lok at IMO...
 
another thing about Bump and Normal mapping is that without dynamic light
and shadows, preferebly moving around such as using a flashlight in a game,
these features will be wasted, and would prolly have been better of if you
just baked the shadow into the regular diffusemap (regular texture)..
If the light isnt moving you wont se the the surfaces cast shadows into them
selves the way they were made to do..

that is why the eariler use of bumpmapping wasnt very ballyhoed, while it
is put to good use in titles such as Doom3 and Farcry that uses of
dynamic lighting...
 
jolle said:
another thing about Bump and Normal mapping is that without dynamic light
and shadows, preferebly moving around such as using a flashlight in a game,
these features will be wasted, and would prolly have been better of if you
just baked the shadow into the regular diffusemap (regular texture)..
If the light isnt moving you wont se the the surfaces cast shadows into them
selves the way they were made to do..

that is why the eariler use of bumpmapping wasnt very ballyhoed, while it
is put to good use in titles such as Doom3 and Farcry that uses of
dynamic lighting...

actually bump mapping impacts way more than just the immediate visual delight of the end user - it has quite of an impact on the gaming industry as a whole too, as bump mapping combined with a good shadowing technique (like shadow volumes) allows for unified lighting on all objects, which is a good thing for the industry (i.e. artists can approach all surfaces of their title in a uniform manner - and at the end of the day that counts way more than having a shinier pixel here or there)
 
Heathen said:
Nalu is a dead end which in no way represents the future. Environments are going to get far more coplex and the number of chaacters is going to increase.
Um, the number of characters on screen depends on the game. It won't increase or decrease over time. It'll just depend on what kind of game the developers want to sell.

Anyway, character detail does increase over time, in case you hadn't noticed.
 
jolle said:
another thing about Bump and Normal mapping is that without dynamic light and shadows, preferebly moving around such as using a flashlight in a game, these features will be wasted
...
Hehe, I originally had that in my post, but it was way too long already, so I cut it. ;)
It can be perfectly demonstrated in FarCry. The normalmapping has a far more significant impact on image quality in the interior sections with multiple dynamic lightsources - as opposed to the outside with mostly only the sun as lightsource...
 
Its becoming more and more comon to give a rough scene polygon count
ASWELL as sourcematerial count these days...
since a normal map is good for the amount of polys the source model its
based on was, in terms of "geometric data"..
Like they mentioned in UE3.0 demoing, 1 mil polys, 200 mil polys worth of source art when counting normal mapping and such..

That is a 200x ratio on actual polys vs "geometric data" which wouldnt be
possible for years and years if the industry didnt move from the "more polys" towards
the "smarter polys" as Carmack calls it..

Its good stuff..
 
Um, the number of characters on screen depends on the game. It won't increase or decrease over time. It'll just depend on what kind of game the developers want to sell.

And? Overall compexity will continue to increase Dramatically and compared to early d3d/OpenGL games I'd say the overall average number of characters has increased.

Anyway, character detail does increase over time, in case you hadn't noticed.

Well Gee Whizz Chal, I'd never have relaised that without your help. :rolleyes:

A character as detailed as nalu is not going to be seen in any game within the lifespan of the NV40. While the nalu model may be far more detailed than the ruby model, the overall impression I've got from the ruby pic, and the ATi GDC 2004 papers, is that the overall demo is a) better looking, b) more interesting and c) more representative of what we can expect to see during the lifetime of the card in 3d games.
 
I have yet to seen a face such as Zoltars ingame (gf3)
nor the wolfman char, neither the Dawn, Inferno, Monkey in ATIs
demo...
AND WHEN WILL I GET MY MORROWIND STYLE RPG IN A "NATURE" SETTING!!
from 3dmark01SE... which is getting old now.. would be nice..

Things like the quality of the Car demo for 9700 pro seems like it would
appear in games soon..
But the techdemos is usually not trying to show off what games can do
or will in the short future..

right now its the armsrace for CGI quality rendering in realtime, and thus
the chars wont fit well into game context for the foreseeable future...
bit of a shame, but we got Game engines showing off years before their
release anyhow, like Doom3, HL2 and UE3.0 has all been shown long
before their due to release... so that makes up for it in a way..

I ran the "early version" of Farcry on my Geforce3 when it was new hehe..
that was a while ago..
 
Heathen said:
A character as detailed as nalu is not going to be seen in any game within the lifespan of the NV40. While the nalu model may be far more detailed than the ruby model, the overall impression I've got from the ruby pic, and the ATi GDC 2004 papers, is that the overall demo is a) better looking, b) more interesting and c) more representative of what we can expect to see during the lifetime of the card in 3d games.
While you might one day find a game with a character as detailed as Ruby (haven't seen her, but I assume she's a fair bit more detailed than anything in current games), and might be able to play it at playable framerates on the R420, chances that will be 2-3 video card generations in the future, and most of us won't have cards from the R4xx/NV4x generation anyway.

I really don't see the point, then. You're only setting an arbitrary timescale by stating that Ruby is more applicable to games. Neither demo is going to be applicable to current games, or even games set to be released within a couple of years.

My point is: if you buy a R420 at first availability, you will not find any game that has graphics on par with ATI's R420 tech demos for the time you own that video card. You will have moved on.

So it's no more applicable to the games you're actually going to play on that video card. What's the point in claiming it is?

Of course, I would like demos that have both separately: demos with great environments/lots of characters, and demos with one great character. But, a demo with one great character really is easier to develop, so I expect we'll see far more of those.
 
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