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

[Fafalada]

Lasers and explosions are your dynamic lights.

Only the global light is computed on pixel level (ie. bumpmapped). Local lighting(ie. lasers and explosions) is vertex based.

Someone mentioned earlier that EMBM doesn't have a specular component

See Sebbi's post. EMBM is a hardcoded way to simulate reflective/specular perturbation of background/distant-light sources. What it isn't suited for are local-lights and diffuse component.
The other person referred to Emboss mapping.

 

[Squeak]

Anybody remember this: http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/activities/geometryegraphics/bumpmapping.html
?

Basically it's just a simpler way to do objectspace normal mapping using a CLUT.
This could be fine for smaller objects like weapons in a FPS.
Best of all, you can put as many lights and materials into it as you want, only limitation being how many times you can change palette per frame.

I guess with Wii you have to really pick among several techniques and find the one best suited for your object/scene.
Emboss for big stretches of flat, like walls and ground (if it really is cheaper than NM ), EM for specular objects lit from afar, CLUT BM for smaller objects and finally NM for stuff that really warrants it.

 

[pc999]

Agreed. Its not the technological expertise that's lacking at all. Many developers could come up with something remarkable given time, vision & money. That said, as ninzel suggested, if people like Epic, Valve or iD were influenced to make games by Nintendo themselves I think it would do more for the console's image.

Nintendo first party games since a long time that are only the second best looking games, they are the best on Wii just because no one else make that kind of games.

My question is, why don't these companies do this merely out of their own self-interest (step 3, profit)? I think the market is there. EA seems to see the writing on the wall.

With lower development costs and console sales outpacing the other 7th gen systems, you'd think it would be a no-brainer.

I think part of the problem is that 1st-party games dominate sales of Wii games by such a wide margin. Then again, if that keeps 3rd party devs from competing, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That it isnt the problem, they dominate the market in part because they are the only games for no casual gamers, IMO.





Those kind of companys have one some reasons to no dev for Wii, first they are quite sucefull in the others, second for them is probably a lower risk dev for the others, third they are in big part creator of engines and a big part of their income came from engine licensing and they probably see Wii as a tech dead end (unless it will end in a portable console...).

Look at ID, they would need to heavily modify/downgrade D3 engine or heavily upgrade Q3 engine and they probably see litle market for both the game or the engine. Valve would probably have a chance, both everyone already played HL2 (it even runs in todays integrated cards) will they invest in a brand new game/episode, when they would have hard time putting the engine (eg physics) that made them famous in Wii specially considering there may be some risk.

A unreal championchip game could be the best option of sucess meybe and GoW with emaphsis on body combat, as UE2 can be a nice mid term on GC/Wii, but again it is a investiment in a tech dead end that goes against everything they did in the last 4 years, and no garanty plus it would take resources from the much safer PC/360/PS3.



What is really mising on Wii is the confidence that there are no casual/"mature" gamers in it, because take nice performance (ie like first party games) isnt hard. Then it makes that there is no engines and su much work on Wii HW and it is helps a vicius circle.

The situation is perfect for the ones like EA, whose HD gen isnt being so good for (no good reason that I can think of), the likes of F5 because the HD hadnt been kind for them (they really dont have the money to be competitive with the big ones) and for new players like High Voltage.

The problem with the question of this thread is that GC/Wii had always been a strange thing to dev for, it needs separate dev, but devs fear that the market isnt really there,

 

[wsippel]

Cool. Its incredible quite frankly. Short clip, but shows me exactly what I want to see.

I really hope they'll license their technology this time. They aren't all that great as game developers, but nobody knows the Gamecube/ Wii hardware like they do - they co-developed it after all.

 

[Nano]

My question is, why don't these companies do this merely out of their own self-interest (step 3, profit)? I think the market is there. EA seems to see the writing on the wall.

With lower development costs and console sales outpacing the other 7th gen systems, you'd think it would be a no-brainer.

I think part of the problem is that 1st-party games dominate sales of Wii games by such a wide margin. Then again, if that keeps 3rd party devs from competing, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

With no dis-respect meant to some of these companies, I do feel there is a real 'air of arrogance in cases. Pretty much "Wii isn't about good looking games", "Wii isn't about deep experiences", "Wii isn't for the hardcore gamer". If that wasn't the mentality, then I think we would have seen more of such efforts since 2007 with the market being simply unnavoidable.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

All that talk is bull anyway. If they like tech and ''hardcore'' games so much than why are they working on consoles to begin with? Alot of console games these days are just thumbed down version of what the pc version used to be anyway. Also I dont really see how you can call the Wii outdated if you are working on other consoles that have gpu's that are 3 years old or more too. If they cared so much about tech they'd all be developing for PC.

What they mean is we go where the money is but we put our eggs in the wrong basket and now were F'ed.

 

[Nano]

Look at ID, they would need to heavily modify/downgrade D3 engine or heavily upgrade Q3 engine and they probably see litle market for both the game or the engine.

I don't agree with that completely. If iD made the right game, and marketed it, the title could sell millions. For around 50m Wii owners, its hard to believe no-one would buy a technically advanced FPS with Wii-remote functionality. They could do what The Conduit is 'predicted to do' and maybe more being iD Software.

I also don't think iD would even use Tech 3 or 4, considering just how restrictive and lacking in modularity those are, they'd more likely make a lite version of Tech 5, at least the tools and megatexture bring something relevant even with its older hardware. And sure there may not be a big market for engine licensing on Wii, but the tech would serve its purpose in at least a couple of titles from iD and it probably wouldn't hurt to have a few people license it too, maybe take a Wii iteration along with the meatier version much like Gamebryo Element or something.

Either could see more than modest success in my opinion.

I really hope they'll license their technology this time. They aren't all that great as game developers, but nobody knows the Gamecube/ Wii hardware like they do - they co-developed it after all.

Indeed. Happen to know any tech details of this Wii engine by any chance?

 

[Panajev2001a]

Anybody remember this: http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/activities/geometryegraphics/bumpmapping.html
?

Basically it's just a simpler way to do objectspace normal mapping using a CLUT.
This could be fine for smaller objects like weapons in a FPS.
Best of all, you can put as many lights and materials into it as you want, only limitation being how many times you can change palette per frame.

I guess with Wii you have to really pick among several techniques and find the one best suited for your object/scene.

Enough... enough... Faf has been talking to me about this for days... . Just kidding... it is a beautiful idea especially if you have enough CPU power to spare and dependent texturing HW on the GPU (Wii would be a nice match then).

 

[pc999]

I don't agree with that completely. If iD made the right game, and marketed it, the title could sell millions. For around 50m Wii owners, its hard to believe no-one would buy a technically advanced FPS with Wii-remote functionality. They could do what The Conduit is 'predicted to do' and maybe more being iD Software.

I also don't think iD would even use Tech 3 or 4, considering just how restrictive and lacking in modularity those are, they'd more likely make a lite version of Tech 5, at least the tools and megatexture bring something relevant even with its older hardware. And sure there may not be a big market for engine licensing on Wii, but the tech would serve its purpose in at least a couple of titles from iD and it probably wouldn't hurt to have a few people license it too, maybe take a Wii iteration along with the meatier version much like Gamebryo Element or something.

Either could see more than modest success in my opinion.

Personally I think that there is indeed a market for mature games on Wii (even more than there was on GC), hopefull games like Madworld and The Conduit will prove me right, still there is very few indications of that even less any hard data... Still I dont understand why there isnt a TimeSplinters 4, or even a Black 2 as exclusives for Wii



On the tech side wouldnt megatexture stress the CPU for tiling (I dont recal how it works on the GPU side, but I had the idea it needs some performance).

Anyway there isnt any midleware engine that can easly use Wii HW, in part because last gen they arent popular (unless it is renderware for multiplatform games) and licencing + modifing could be as costly as creating. Other of the reasons also as because the low power of consoles most engines didnt had so many "universal features" that could be used in many genres of games, you still had FPS engines, racing engines, RTS engines, unlike idtech 6 or UE3 that can work in almost any kind of game.

Meybe it is a litle bit Nintendo fault that they dont help or incentive the creation of such engines.

Enough... enough... Faf has been talking to me about this for days... . Just kidding... it is a beautiful idea especially if you have enough CPU power to spare and dependent texturing HW on the GPU (Wii would be a nice match then).

GC CPU has pretty much been used to feed the GPU and doing AI/animation and litle less (colision detection and such) Nintendo games even RE4 are perfect examples things like advanced animation/physics/"advanced AI"/dinamic elements/... (compare with something like H2, or even D3 and a few others XB exclusives)are in many cases next to none. Still games evolved and while we see some new uses to the CPU (physics/particles/AI) yet we still have things like death animations (eg in the Conduit and such).

Isnt asking to much from that CPU That can at the same time giving what we got (to some extent) used in post GC games and still feed the GPU with even more data?

 

[fearsomepirate]

Valve would probably have a chance, both everyone already played HL2 (it even runs in todays integrated cards) will they invest in a brand new game/episode, when they would have hard time putting the engine (eg physics) that made them famous in Wii specially considering there may be some risk.

Valve is famous because of two revolutionary games from the 90s: Half-Life and Team Fortress Classic. Neither had cutting-edge technology. Half-Life 2 would doubtlessly have been a success with a less interesting physics model. Famous companies are famous because they make great games. id's notable for graphics, but if it weren't for the Doom and Quake series being such fantastic games, I don't think they would still be around. Same goes for Epic--if the Unreal Tournament series wasn't actually one of the best multiplayer shooters of its era, I'm not sure where they'd be.

A special awesome graphics engine from id probably wouldn't be much beyond what people (including Nintendo--played Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, or Wind Waker?) have done with the machine, and a graphics engine used in a handful of games is not exactly a huge selling point for any console--geekier forum types might get excited, but the average customer doesn't care. Games sell consoles. If one of those companies brought a big-name franchise to the Wii with a top-notch installment, it might attract more gamers and more studios might follow suit, but a custom graphics engine alone will do jack squat.

 

[pc999]

I think that I said the main problems are that (really with any of them)

1) they would need to make a brand new game

2) among other resources they would need to invest in "outdated" tech (ie that they cant crossplatform, is not sure how many times they can reuse...), that would be against their current bussiness model that is working very well for them.

Those popular and sucessfull companys have litle reason and higher risks investing on Wii, that is why EA, F5, Sega among others are starting to invest on Wii, because the HD gen isnt been to sucefull (in proffits at least).

New players may also seems the Wii perfect to invest.

Capcon is investing in theirs on rallys RE:UCs partially because they are reusing/updating the tech and models so the risk is very low (althought it seems they are a sucess anyway).

But to keep on topic all of this starts on GC whose condition made it a strange player last gen, not being very sucefull it saw very litle investiment, Today it still a stranger in terms of HW utilization and in many cases even how to be used.

That is way the thread is so misguided, if they use Wii to make a D3 looking game, then they are probably using the HW in a very innefecient way and cutting conners that most dont want to cut (new AI/particles/physics...).

Off Topic : I do thinck that HL2 without it physics would be a much poorer game, it isnt just a visual fx it is actually part of the game/game mechanics/gameplay.

 

[Nano]

Personally I think that there is indeed a market for mature games on Wii (even more than there was on GC), hopefull games like Madworld and The Conduit will prove me right, still there is very few indications of that even less any hard data... Still I dont understand why there isnt a TimeSplinters 4, or even a Black 2 as exclusives for Wii

Well its a wait and see sort of thing I guess. But I'm thinking even the sales of COD3 would have gave someone an early Birthday present

On the tech side wouldnt megatexture stress the CPU for tiling (I dont recal how it works on the GPU side, but I had the idea it needs some performance).

There are games and demos showing the use of one huge texture in 3d environments, but I've never really looked into differences of implementation (or quite frankly had the info). What I do know however is that Carmack believes its possible to port Megatexture to Wii which I think would be very interesting to see in Wii titles. I personally think texturing is the most important part of visuals (if you could quanitfy importance), and to solve some of the biggest problems in this area even on Wii, or even just an attempt to raise the bar, could bring an incredible leap in detail/fidelity.

Anyway there isnt any midleware engine that can easly use Wii HW, in part because last gen they arent popular (unless it is renderware for multiplatform games) and licencing + modifing could be as costly as creating. Other of the reasons also as because the low power of consoles most engines didnt had so many "universal features" that could be used in many genres of games, you still had FPS engines, racing engines, RTS engines, unlike idtech 6 or UE3 that can work in almost any kind of game.

Meybe it is a litle bit Nintendo fault that they dont help or incentive the creation of such engines.

I don't think I'd blame tham much for that (well I might blame them a bit for not coaxing 3rd parties to throw as much money at Cube as they did Xbox & PS2 however). It looks like part of the way the industry has changed/moved. Flexible, modular and multi-target is really the way to go nowadays. There's quite a few multi-platform middleware solutions that have support for Wii now so its a good thing to see. Some even go a little further to have shaders customized around the TEV integrated. Ultimately, Nintendo did give the hardware (very good if you ask many) and its the companies that work on it who have the choice of pushing it or not.

 

[fearsomepirate]

1) they would need to make a brand new game

And this is bad? As opposed to porting something that's months or years old? The only port I can think of to garner much attention was Doom 3...and it certainly was not responsible for driving Xbox sales. New games draw major attention. They always have.

That is way the thread is so misguided, if they use Wii to make a D3 looking game, then they are probably using the HW in a very innefecient way and cutting conners that most dont want to cut (new AI/particles/physics...).

I think the thread has gotten misguided because a number of people seem to have this strange belief that if some big-name developer built a middleware engine for Wii...other than, you know, Unreal Engine 2, id Tech 3, and Renderware, and any other middleware engines that were used on Gamecube...that it would drastically affect game sales or what games publishers choose to fund or something. There's no logical reason for that, because the fact is the customer base largely would not care. The only people who really care about graphics engines are tech geeks, roughly 0% of whom are excited about anything having to do with Wii's graphics. The lack of a new middleware engine isn't stopping them (because UE2 is already out there and is highly capable)--what's stopping them is not being sure what sort of games Wii owners will actually buy. Even if id did develop an all-new game for Wii with an all-new graphics engine (which would still not magically bequeath the Wii with a DX9-class GPU or anything like that), that's no guarantee that it would sell well enough to justify an influx of new first-person shooters or even just more polished graphics in the minigame compilations.

Off Topic : I do thinck that HL2 without it physics would be a much poorer game, it isnt just a visual fx it is actually part of the game/game mechanics/gameplay.

Sure, but would it have sold poorly if they had never made the parts where you get to fiddle around with stacking crates and pallets, and the physics hadn't been anything much beyond what we'd seen already? Of course not. Forum tech geeks tend to vastly, vastly overestimate the number of people who get hyped up about a game because of some new technological feature.

 

[Entropy]

I think that I said the main problems are that (really with any of them)

1) they would need to make a brand new game

2) among other resources they would need to invest in "outdated" tech (ie that they cant crossplatform, is not sure how many times they can reuse...), that would be against their current bussiness model that is working very well for them.

To these two points I'd like to add
3) time to market
Which is closely connected to 1). It hasn't really been all that long that we could say for sure that the Wii was a run-away success. Even after it had outsold the XBox360, many still referred to it as a fad that would fade. To create a new game (new IP, new engine for Wii) takes time, sufficiently long that by the time the powers that be in these companies realized that there was money to be made in that huge user-base, it may have been too great a risk that a really ambitious title might miss its market window. By now, the Wii is probably regarded as a missed opportunity for starting up any ambitious third party projects. (Of course, we have no idea what projects may be in the works that haven't been leaked.)

 

[Dargakis]

ID never made a technical impressive game on any console.
Look it up.
I do not understand the sentiment why "id should be able to do it!"
The only thing they did, is state that the dreamcast is superior to the ps2. We all know how that ended.
They are far more capable developers for the consoles. This is not opinion, this is a fact.
Please refrain from the "id can do it!" talk.

On a technical level, the wii hardware cannot process the same effects, as has been discussed a lot of times before. It can make games that look great however, although this will never be with real normal mapping or other effects that were only possible in the xbox1 doom3 version.
The discussion is now" can it make an effect that looks like normal mapping under very specific circumstances...

 

[Betanumerical]

On a technical level, the wii hardware cannot process the same effects, as has been discussed a lot of times before. It can make games that look great however, although this will never be with real normal mapping or other effects that were only possible in the xbox1 doom3 version.
The discussion is now" can it make an effect that looks like normal mapping under very specific circumstances...

Wii can do normal mapping fine, just look at the conduit. I don't know what you mean by 'very specfific circumstances' care to flesh that out a little more?.

 

[ninzel]

I wasn't trying to suggest that the Wii would benefit from these developers just from a tech standpoint(although it would help a little). These are the kind of companies that build games that Nintendo themselves don't much. These are marquee devs that would be draw a lot of positive attention from a segment of the gamer population that has been underserved.
If Nintendo funded helf it was dramatically reduce the risk.Freeing up the dev from cutting corners,they could almost do it for shit's and giggles.

 

[Nano]

ID never made a technical impressive game on any console.
Look it up.
I do not understand the sentiment why "id should be able to do it!"
The only thing they did, is state that the dreamcast is superior to the ps2. We all know how that ended.
They are far more capable developers for the consoles. This is not opinion, this is a fact.
Please refrain from the "id can do it!" talk.

I'm not sure how that can be fact. If iD have a specific aim, they usually achieve it by some means. Sure many of their console games weren't that impressive for the time they released, but Doom3 pushed the envelope even in a toned down form on Xbox, particularly in the lighting/shadowing area. And Rage as we can already see is pushing the envelope in certain areas too. If iD software set out to do a technically advanced game to look better than anything on Wii (which Carmack pretty much said he'd attempt if making a game here), knowing their expertise and current efforts on the platform, there is little reason to believe iD wouldn't do something a bit special.

On a technical level, the wii hardware cannot process the same effects, as has been discussed a lot of times before. It can make games that look great however, although this will never be with real normal mapping or other effects that were only possible in the xbox1 doom3 version.
The discussion is now" can it make an effect that looks like normal mapping under very specific circumstances...

That doesn't make any sense. There isn't really an effect in there Wii can't do. The question is how fast and how flexibly, then we can bring in what would/could possibly work better for this platform compared to Xbox.

 

[pc999]

Well its a wait and see sort of thing I guess. But I'm thinking even the sales of COD3 would have gave someone an early Birthday present

CoD is one of the few games that always sell very wel.

There are games and demos showing the use of one huge texture in 3d environments, but I've never really looked into differences of implementation (or quite frankly had the info). What I do know however is that Carmack believes its possible to port Megatexture to Wii which I think would be very interesting to see in Wii titles. I personally think texturing is the most important part of visuals (if you could quanitfy importance), and to solve some of the biggest problems in this area even on Wii, or even just an attempt to raise the bar, could bring an incredible leap in detail/fidelity.

Didnt knew that, any more info you can share?

I don't think I'd blame tham much for that (well I might blame them a bit for not coaxing 3rd parties to throw as much money at Cube as they did Xbox & PS2 however). It looks like part of the way the industry has changed/moved. Flexible, modular and multi-target is really the way to go nowadays. There's quite a few multi-platform middleware solutions that have support for Wii now so its a good thing to see. Some even go a little further to have shaders customized around the TEV integrated. Ultimately, Nintendo did give the hardware (very good if you ask many) and its the companies that work on it who have the choice of pushing it or not.

Actually cant recal many midleware engines that can use Wii more that the trivial things. Or that are optimised for Wii. Meybe that is just my fault

Meybe if Nintendo made availiable its own engines...

And this is bad? As opposed to porting something that's months or years old? The only port I can think of to garner much attention was Doom 3...and it certainly was not responsible for driving Xbox sales. New games draw major attention. They always have.

Personally I love new games.

They are a lot more risk and they dont have the free marketing of ports, still that would be heavens for me.

I think the thread has gotten misguided because a number of people seem to have this strange belief that if some big-name developer built a middleware engine for Wii...other than, you know, Unreal Engine 2, id Tech 3, and Renderware, and any other middleware engines that were used on Gamecube...that it would drastically affect game sales or what games publishers choose to fund or something. There's no logical reason for that, because the fact is the customer base largely would not care. The only people who really care about graphics engines are tech geeks, roughly 0% of whom are excited about anything having to do with Wii's graphics. The lack of a new middleware engine isn't stopping them (because UE2 is already out there and is highly capable)--what's stopping them is not being sure what sort of games Wii owners will actually buy. Even if id did develop an all-new game for Wii with an all-new graphics engine (which would still not magically bequeath the Wii with a DX9-class GPU or anything like that), that's no guarantee that it would sell well enough to justify an influx of new first-person shooters or even just more polished graphics in the minigame compilations.

Dont count me between those, the problem of games looking bad on Wii is the very low investiment in both tech and art. Also last gen licensing and modifing, many times didnt has as good or cheap as a brand new engine, althought it could help some smaler devs as they also bring good editores and pipelines of content creation.

Sure, but would it have sold poorly if they had never made the parts where you get to fiddle around with stacking crates and pallets, and the physics hadn't been anything much beyond what we'd seen already? Of course not. Forum tech geeks tend to vastly, vastly overestimate the number of people who get hyped up about a game because of some new technological feature.

Anything with HL2 in its name would sell very well, I´ve been carefull with the words I chosse.

To these two points I'd like to add
3) time to market

That is actually a very good adition, specially because non know or can predict the life span of the console.

On a technical level, the wii hardware cannot process the same effects, as has been discussed a lot of times before. It can make games that look great however, although this will never be with real normal mapping or other effects that were only possible in the xbox1 doom3 version.
The discussion is now" can it make an effect that looks like normal mapping under very specific circumstances...

IIRC it could even use polybump (from Cryengine1/FarCry) at least that used to been in their feature list.

It is more about of what is a good use of the HW than anything else. Meybe it couldnt process all the fxs at the same time.

Still wii can do emboss, EMBM, specular, add more fxs and do great shadows (see the F5 article/SW:RS game) just using diferent tech and producing a diferent look (better worst?).

I wasn't trying to suggest that the Wii would benefit from these developers just from a tech standpoint(although it would help a little). These are the kind of companies that build games that Nintendo themselves don't much. These are marquee devs that would be draw a lot of positive attention from a segment of the gamer population that has been underserved.
If Nintendo funded helf it was dramatically reduce the risk.Freeing up the dev from cutting corners,they could almost do it for shit's and giggles.

Sure it would help, but I think the probabilitys of that are very low, but hey we got a DoomRPG for the mobile phone.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

(well I might blame them a bit for not coaxing 3rd parties to throw as much money at Cube as they did Xbox & PS2 however).

Remember Resident Evil 4? Look what happened to Nintendo there.

Besides, Nintendo's getting Monster Hunter 3 (ok, probably get screwed a la RE4) next Tales game, Dragon Quest X, and a couple of other brand new made for Wii games from Japanese devs.

Other of the reasons also as because the low power of consoles most engines didnt had so many "universal features" that could be used in many genres of games, you still had FPS engines, racing engines, RTS engines, unlike idtech 6 or UE3 that can work in almost any kind of game.

High Voltage's Quantum 3 engine is actually pretty flexible. It's already running 3 WiiWare titles. One is Evasive Space (2D side scrolling shooter without the shooting), Hot Rod Show, and Gyrostarr, and finally a cel-shaded overhead shooter Animales de la Muerte.



Gyrostarr

Evasive Space

Hot Rod Show

Animales de la Muerte (started off as a WiiWare game but it's now a FULL RETAIL GAME)

Come to think of it, is it wise to use UE2 for the Wii? I mean, isn't UE2 still a first and foremost a PC engine? The shaders needs to be converted, and is most likely not built around the Wii's/Cube's strengths. Wouldn't it be better to use Quantum 3 or is UE2 really THAT good?