Can Wii achieve the same level of Xbox's Doom3?

[DeadlyNinja]

Normal mapping is bump mapping. I don't know what you mean with "plain bumpmapping".

You sure he's not talking about the grey scale bump maps? That's different from normal mapping, and to my knowledge the grey scale method is referred to as bump mapping and not other name (but I could be VERY wrong).

As for normal mapping, the folks at High Voltage kept saying The Conduit uses a lot of normal mapping. I think the Wii can handle normal mapping much better than the Cube.

That means that in games like SM:G or The Conduit, here we see massive amounts of bump+specular (and in the later additional fx) they are all done via indirect texturing, nice, unless there is some extra HW just for it. Anyway it answers my question.

I can't say about The Conduit, but I'm pretty sure Super Mario Galaxy uses environment mapped bump mapping... unless that's just another name for bump + specular. My guess is The Conduit's not using EMBM.

 

[Nano]

The Conduit uses normal maps on practially every character afaik, and considering the Wii has a higher pixel fill-rate and more memory, being better at normal mapping than cube is true given the extra power. Also, The Conduit does use embossing too.

Plus there is some hardwired HW for emboss mapping in GC right?

Correct.

 

[fearsomepirate]

If you mean emboss mapping, then it would have equally high cost to normal mapping (two passes and lighting calculations) and be less flexible.

The data texture for emboss mapping is smaller (gray-scale as opposed to RGB), and you don't need to compute a per-pixel dot product. It's just a texture offset and an alpha blend.

pc999, emboss mapping is basically severely limited in the types of "bumpy" surfaces it can represent and lighting conditions it responds to. You should read this explanation of the three main types of bump mapping:
http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/bumpmapping/

The Gamecube had hardware support for emboss mapping and environment mapped bump mapping (which is how it did those nifty water effects), but it wasn't really designed for normal mapping (it could be done...but was slow and expensive as compared to the Xbox).

 

[Dargakis]

looks we forgot what the topic was about.

can the wii make games that look like this:

the answer is simple if you look at the condiut, and then at the above screenshot, courtesy of xbox doom3.
this is caused by the fact that the wii uses the approach nintendo chose in 1999/2000 when developing gamecube. to be backwards compatible, they could not use a different gpu design. So that is why the wii is kind of like a 1999/2000 gpu, but at a higher clockspeed.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

The Gamecube had hardware support for emboss mapping and environment mapped bump mapping (which is how it did those nifty water effects), but it wasn't really designed for normal mapping (it could be done...but was slow and expensive as compared to the Xbox).

Really, is there a point to using normal map on the Wii besides showing off your e-peen? Seems like EMBM is a very good substitute without the heavy cost of performance. Is there something normal mapping can do that EMBM can't?

 

[Dargakis]

Is there something normal mapping can do that EMBM can't?

"achieve the same level of Xbox's Doom3?"

 

[AlNom]

Is there something normal mapping can do that EMBM can't?

It comes down to image fidelity. A lack of a specular component is also notable.

http://web.onetel.net.uk/~simonnihal/bumpcomp/bumpcomp.html

 

[Nano]

Really, is there a point to using normal map on the Wii besides showing off your e-peen? Seems like EMBM is a very good substitute without the heavy cost of performance. Is there something normal mapping can do that EMBM can't?

Ideally effects should only be used (given the design goals and hardware) if they make sense. Hypothetically if I were making a Wii title, unless I really wanted to prove a point I probably wouldn't use it. Normal mapping is more flexible and potentially allows you to achieve a greater sense of geometric detail than earlier methods of bump mapping, but emboss bump mapping has its wide applications too. As examples you can; give rock/stone structures finer, bumpier surfaces, express the smaller grains of sand or snow better than a simple texture, give a better representation of the depth the top soil on a forest floor has and give certain types of cloth or metallic surfaces a greater sense of surface detail.

"achieve the same level of Xbox's Doom3?"

That could be a subjective quantity. If the question is changed to "Can you achive a game that 'looks as good' as Doom 3 without normal mapping?" then I would vote for. If we're speaking of a port however, it would look less favourable.

 

[Dargakis]

so it all depends on how you interpret the original poster/ start post.

 

[Fafalada]

Is there something normal mapping can do that EMBM can't?

EMBM is a hardwired Matrix(3x2) * Vector(3) transform and a texture lookup based on result, where matrix input is a constant.
"Normal mapping" the way it is used in this thread(and in your post) refers to any arbitrary computation where one or more inputs is a normal map. In other words, EMBM is a tiny subset of it.

 

[sebbbi]

Really, is there a point to using normal map on the Wii besides showing off your e-peen? Seems like EMBM is a very good substitute without the heavy cost of performance. Is there something normal mapping can do that EMBM can't?

EMBM is just a simple method to distort your texture coordinates when rendering an environment map.

EMBM limitations:
- Works only on objects that have environment maps. Warps only the environement reflection texture, does not affect lighting (diffuse/specular) at all.
- Not in any way physically correct. Has all the same limitations as doing fake specular reflections with environment maps: The environment map is "rendered" from one point (not from all the object surface points) and the EMBM shift to the texture coordinate is just a addition, not a real calculated reflection vector.
- EMBM is not based on real dynamic lighting (it only distorts environment map texture coordinates). Environment maps are (most of the time) static (hand drawn by artists) forcing the lighting conditions to be static.
- If developer chooses, the environment maps can be rendered on real time to allow dynamic lighting, but the performance penalty for doing this is heavy. It's not something that Wii games will likely use. Swapping between different environment textures is also possible, but all the possible lighting conditions still have to be precalculated and stored into a large amount of environment map textures.
- To have both per pixel diffuse and specular lighting, all objects need to be rendered twice using different specular and diffuse environment maps. It still does not look as good as dot product (Blinn/Phong) diffuse/specular normap mapping because of the limitations described above.

As you see from the "Conduit" screenshots all the EMBM bump mapped surfaces are all shiny and reflective (heavily environment mapped). This is because the EMBM only distorts the environment map (without a environment map it does not work). Shiny "fake specular" environment map based bumps like these do not look realistic at all. It's a technique that does not work on dusty industrial looking scenes like Doom 3's really well.

 

[Dargakis]

that's true; the bump mapping of the conduit looks more like "highly reflective gold-mapping"

 

[Statix]

The buildings were volume shadowed, with a moving light source (day-time changes dynamically). You're right about non-player characters, but this was a free-roaming game with a very large city to fly around, some concessions had to be made.

I think you're confusing the different versions of the Spider-Man 2 game. The Gamecube version had no dynamic shadowing whatsoever on the buildings and environment and NPCs. The PS2 version, however, did have dynamic shadows cast from the buildings, although these are soft-edged and pixellated, so they were shadow buffers, not stencil shadow volumes. Take a look at the Gamespot video review for the Spider-Man 2 game; they have footage of all the versions of the games that you can compare yourself.

They were comparing direct access to XBox GPU to being handcuffed by API restrictions on PC. All consoles that allow metal-access benefit from this to various extents.
And I totally agree about programmable-shader advantages, but this affects the other half you mentioned. Volumes just need the fillrate and something more flexible then shaders(usually the CPU) to run the geometry.

I did a google search on "stencil shadow shaders" and found this technical article stating that GPU shaders, particularly those from the 2002 era and beyond, can be much more efficient at rendering stencil shadow volumes than leaving it in software by the CPU alone, for various reasons beyond simply fillrate capability. Who knows, the Xbox's GPU might have had some of the "hidden instructions" Vicarious Visions was talking about that were particularly useful in speeding up the rendering process for stencil shadows.

 

[Nano]

so it all depends on how you interpret the original poster/ start post.

In my opinion yes.

As far as the topic title goes, I think even the little GC has achieved 'the same level' with Rogue Squadron III, albeit completely different environments (large complex outdoor terrains, thick vegetation, atmospheric lighting...basically) and philosophy.

For the original post itself, I find it hard to imagine Doom3's techniques moving over perfectly to Wii, well at least normal maps on everything...

Change it, then who knows

 

[Dargakis]

Can Genesis achieve the same level of SNES's Donkey Kong?
-In my opinion Sonic 3 looks great also!

But it's true what you say.
In my opinion, nothing on gamecube or wii comes even close to ZOE2.

 

[sfried]

I think someone needs to ask...no, take John Carmack hostage to rebuild Doom3 on Wii and settle this once and for all. There's no use debating if people insist saying "GC/Wii can't do that simply because I've never seen it!" even when there's documentation and evidence on the contruary. That said, it wouldn't be a simple straight port, and seeing how Factor 5 has been disbanded, perhaps they can get some of their people to "help" firgure how to work out TEV.

 

[Nano]

Funnily enough, the TEV's core technology isn't much of a secret to developers, I think the main factor is taking the time (and money) to use its proprietary ways of integrating shaders as opposed to ignoring it.

Carmack has tip-toed around the idea of developing on Wii and pushing it a couple of times. Whatever he potentially does, I expect it to involve Megatexture. Would also be cool to see id push post-processing more than they did in Doom3 and games proceeding it. I'm a fan of new IPs, but just for the intrigue it would be amazing to see a remake on Wii and how today's thinking is applied to yesterday's architecture.

 

[pc999]

Thanks for the info, I already forgoted must of that stuff.

For the original post itself, I find it hard to imagine Doom3's techniques moving over perfectly to Wii, well at least normal maps on everything...

Change it, then who knows

Shouldnt that be obvious, I mean Wii doesnt have much more raw performance (TnL, filrate, CPU ... and those "old" benchmarks) than XB, at least that we know of. And they are really diferent architetures, made for quite diferent stuff.

So the question lays more in things like what does look better a full scene normal mapping/complex shaders and stencil shadows, or lots of EMBM, higher polygon counts/textures rez/fremerates plus some very nice fxs (overall less complex than XB, those that come from the GPU, but superior those that came from the CPU)?

Quite depends on the game IMO.

 

[Nano]

I did a google search on "stencil shadow shaders" and found this technical article stating that GPU shaders, particularly those from the 2002 era and beyond, can be much more efficient at rendering stencil shadow volumes than leaving it in software by the CPU alone, for various reasons beyond simply fillrate capability. Who knows, the Xbox's GPU might have had some of the "hidden instructions" Vicarious Visions was talking about that were particularly useful in speeding up the rendering process for stencil shadows.

Likewise mate, I don't think the NV2A's shader architecture is much of a secret either. Fill-rate limited or not, Pixel Shader 1.4 and 2 vertex shader units are going to offer more flexibility in just about everything. So its really no surprise.

 

[Nano]

Shouldnt that be obvious, I mean Wii doesnt have much more raw performance (TnL, filrate, CPU ... and those "old" benchmarks) than XB, at least that we know of. And they are really diferent architetures, made for quite diferent stuff.

So the question lays more in things like what does look better a full scene normal mapping/complex shaders and stencil shadows, or lots of EMBM, higher polygon counts/textures rez/fremerates plus some very nice fxs (overall less complex than XB)?

Quite depends on the game IMO.

Indeed, but it has to be mentioned if only to influence open minds

In my humble opinion (and big imagination), if you ditched the computationally hungry normal maps, and matched the lighting. Pushing superior textures, particles, post-processing and geometry would probably looker better to me anyway

As great as the lighting & bump mapping are alone, I don't think Doom3 really exploits other areas to nearly the same extent. But again, that's going by what I've observed and how I'd imagine a potential Wii counterpart. There are so many ways to achieve design visions/goals, but that goes without saying.