Capcom's "Framework" game engine

[liolio]

There are several tricks to reduce the impact of predicated tiling on vertex throughput (manual predication for example, 'cutting' your models in smaller and spatially coherent batches and so on), which help a lot reach the famous 5%. It's not a walk in the park though. It does require work. I'd say that in many situations 2X can be essentially free, while 4X has some more impact; free in terms of performance, but it's not even close to be free in terms of programmers time and development cost.

Fran.

thanks for you response.
So your personal choice would be to use automatic predicated tiling with 2xAA with very few performance hit or to spend some time to make it almost free, and use the extra fill rate for something else.
Are you allowed to say us the way you to likely to follow with fable II?

EDIT.
i feel that i don't understand properly the reverse AA, but it appears that UE3 as some issues with tiling when it come to some shadows. Would it be possible to run the game with some AA say 2xAA and to "expand" the shadows twice and resolve latter the buffer with less accurate shadows?

 

[pakotlar]

Agreed actually I'd say 90%, I'm just wondering if the MT Framework engine will allow near UE3 like level of modeling detail which from what I've seen so far doesn't seem possible. We'll have to wait for RE5 to see how the MT Framework holds up in smaller environments.

Yeah just to chime in, I'd say it is about 80% as impressive in the worst case, and more impressive in the best. I am more immersed in the environment with Lost Planet, and the global shadowing system gives it a much more realistic feel.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I don't know my friend, I look at models for these games (all systems) and I do not know what they mean when they say they have so many polygons each frame. Maybe they include normal map original but real polygons is much less, I dont know. I think even Lair has now much less polygons than 170,000/dragon. But I do not know, maybe this is what millions of polygons looks like. (?)

First of all, 10-15.000 triangles aren't that much at all. Even though it's an order of magnitude more then in Quake3, it's still far from enough to properly display detailed shapes, especially curved; and lowpoly hair and fur of any kind makes it count a lot less too.

Second, most games today take many passes to render things, inlcuding depth buffers for shadow maps and stuff. A single texture mapped particle also means two triangles, and you can easily throw a couple of thousand particles at an explosion, smoke trail or such.

It all adds up in the end...

 

[Jesus2006]

Second, most games today take many passes to render things, inlcuding depth buffers for shadow maps and stuff. A single texture mapped particle also means two triangles, and you can easily throw a couple of thousand particles at an explosion, smoke trail or such.

It all adds up in the end...

Thanks, that [multiple render passes that count in] explains it for me! (Btw. i got a "stop making sh*t up" neg. rep on saying something simliar above ... weird world )

 

[_phil_]

A character that you think is alone in a scene will probably be rendered up to 6 times ,depending on shaders, lighting conditions ,and skinning,...Nextegn polycounts are a lot about polygons you won't be able to count on a screenshot.
The view frustrum is a kind of iceberg...

 

[Fran]

So your personal choice would be to use automatic predicated tiling with 2xAA with very few performance hit or to spend some time to make it almost free, and use the extra fill rate for something else.

I'd say it depends on the game, budget, and several other factors, including if there's time available or not
One important thing to remember, in my opinion: there's a negligeable hit in terms of fill rate when you go from no AA to 2xAA or 4xAA, the hit is in terms of vertex throughput and can be substancial if not properly addressed.

Fran.

 

[nAo]

One important thing to remember, in my opinion: there's a negligeable hit in terms of fill rate when you go from no AA to 2xAA or 4xAA, the hit is in terms of vertex throughput and can be substancial if not properly addressed.

Probably this is the real 5% hit (or even less), the one 'affecting' fillrate, which is ridicuolously small thanks to edram and overal ROPs design of Xenos.

 

[Fran]

OK so my looooong summary translation for Nishikawa's new article... :smile:

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20070131/3dlp.htm

Very interesting! Lots of good stuff. Thanks

 

[CEO]

So Resident Evil 5 seems perfectly possible in all its Pre Redered CGI glory then? If the Pre Release Trailer is CGI that is.

Someone said it before, RE5 environments would be smaller (judging by the looks of that mentioned trailer) thus more attention to details could be paid resulting in a very lifelike areas, like that urban one from the trailer with heat distortion and other cool stuff.

Seeing how well the Cutscenes in Resident Evil 4, Dead Rising and Lost Planet are executed i think that the following picture shows what to expect from capcom and the upcoming hit RE5.

http://img.majidonline.com/pic/18719/Resident Evil 5.jpg

ps. i have the strange feeling that this Framework game engine thing kinda started on a gamecube. i dont know why.

 

[_phil_]

it started on onimusha 3 (ps2)

 

[Nesh]

it started on onimusha 3 (ps2)

That was a great engine. The backrounds were brilliantly made. Almost as good as their prerendered counterparts. The character design was also as good looking as 1 and 2 despite that the whole game was fully rendered in real time.

I think we are going to see great stuff from this engine in next gen

 

[pakotlar]

So Resident Evil 5 seems perfectly possible in all its Pre Redered CGI glory then? If the Pre Release Trailer is CGI that is.

Someone said it before, RE5 environments would be smaller (judging by the looks of that mentioned trailer) thus more attention to details could be paid resulting in a very lifelike areas, like that urban one from the trailer with heat distortion and other cool stuff.

Seeing how well the Cutscenes in Resident Evil 4, Dead Rising and Lost Planet are executed i think that the following picture shows what to expect from capcom and the upcoming hit RE5.

http://img.majidonline.com/pic/18719/Resident Evil 5.jpg

ps. i have the strange feeling that this Framework game engine thing kinda started on a gamecube. i dont know why.

I know what you mean, it seems like something you would pull off on the gamecube. Aka, the games that we've seen so far haven't hadultra flashy, normal mapped, bloomy visuals that brought to mind Xbox graphics. Gamecube seemed more about finesse and subtlety in detail. Lost Planet is a great example of this, and probably the most stunning game I've played.

 

[archangelmorph]

I know what you mean, it seems like something you would pull off on the gamecube. Aka, the games that we've seen so far haven't hadultra flashy, normal mapped, bloomy visuals that brought to mind Xbox graphics. Gamecube seemed more about finesse and subtlety in detail. Lost Planet is a great example of this, and probably the most stunning game I've played.

Did you guys not read _phil_'s post then??

 

[StefanS]

During this yea's CEDEC, Capcom presented a talk on the history of Lost Planet and its effects and technologies, and the use of the framework engine.

Interestingly, the development started on PS2 and was later resumed on X360 after the framework engine was in developement

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20070926/lp.htm

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20070926/lp03.jpg
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20070926/lp13.jpg
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20070926/lp16.jpg
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20070926/lp25.jpg

 

[Hardknock]

To me this is the most impressive next-gen engine by far. Even beating out most console exclusive engines. DMC4, RE5, Lost Planet and Dead Rising are all near or at the top in their respective genres. Capcom should really license this engine out.

 

[22psi]

I loved the way LP looked, really hoping for LP2 they will up the ante even more!

 

[archangelmorph]

Wow they really know how to equip their programmers huh?

My setup at work is no-where near that beast job..

 

[AlNom]

Wow they really know how to equip their programmers huh?

My setup at work is no-where near that beast job..

But notice how they don't pluralize the equipment! They put all their budget into one programmer PC, one Xbox 360 kit, and one artist PC.

 

[ban25]

Wow they really know how to equip their programmers huh?

My setup at work is no-where near that beast job..

Actually, I'm surprised they only have 2 GB of RAM.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Artists need more, and behold, they get 8 GB...