differernt method of rendering with PS3/XB2/GC2?

[megadrive0088]

Often I read that with PS3 (and i presume other consoles of its era) that there could be a move AWAY from the usual method of rendering realtime graphics with textures. what was that called again?

I think it has alot to do with shaders and renderman-like methods of rendering. procederial rendering or something. what advantages does it have over textures, and does it also do away with polygons?

Ive heard people talk about doing game charactors with a very dense mesh (meaning very high polygon count i guess) and replacing textures with shaders or this other type of rendering (that might have alot to do with shaders) excuse my extreme and obvious ignornace on this. im just a gamer who would like to understand what games will look like on the next generation of systems.

also what do you predict will be possible and not possible on PS3/XBox2 in terms of graphics, lighting and shading? are they going to get global illumination solved or partally solved with the GPUs in those consoles?
can we expect some kind of radiosity lighting? or is that far too much to expect?

 

[PC-Engine]

You're probably talking about scanline rendering using layering.

 

[Tagrineth]

How about pure voxel engines?

Wouldn't that be cool? And it's kinda viable for a console vid chip, since the Voxel accelerator core wouldn't have to worry about API compliance

 

[BoddoZerg]

Realtime radiosity and raytracing!

6th order realtime spherical harmonics with skeletal animation and per-vertex collision detection!

User interface that plugs directly into the human brain stem!

Grid computing drawing on the the limitless cpu cycles of the Meklar homeworld mainframe!

Hovering skateboards that are the real Ginger!

Holographic projections that can also be used to fight invading Borg!

It fixes ducts, cars, shelves, and it protects you from chemical and biological terrorist attack!

Only consumes 4.2 jiggawatts of power - plutonium not included!

PS3 Hype may contain any or all of the above ingredients. The efficacy of this PS3 Hype has not been tested or certified by the FDA, NIH, CDC, DEA, NSF, or NASA. All claims are purely speculative and should not be taken with aspirin. If you encounter unexpected side effects, please bury your head in ATi hype instead, then contact your local Poison Control Center. This warning label is required by federal law.

Rapture, Armageddon, and Second Coming not included.

 

[_phil_]

Hey ,why not Hypervoxels ?
After playing a while with Maya fluids dynamics and hypervoxels ,i imagine how cool it would be to have some (yes ,simpliest dynamics-wise ) hypervoxels rendering solution for some types of games such REZ.

There's gameplay in playing with physic and dynamics.at the hypervoxel level ,it's MAGIC.

Didn't Carmack said once that some voxels evolution was the future ?

 

[_phil_]

Katia has it's own rendering method not based on triangles.

 

[MfA]

Using layers extensively is possible now, it's just not very relevant without having an artist to direct every shot ...

 

[megadrive0088]

in some of the large threads on PS3/XBox2 - the subject of my thread here is discussed. yet i still dont understand it. what will this style of rendering do for games? im hoping it makes games look more CGI like than a bunch of polygons with textures on them, which tends to make characters and objects (especially aircraft) look extremely THIN. like card board cut outs. im hoping that renderman type shaders for realtime games, in PS3 and XBox2 and even the next Nintendo, will help gameplay graphics (not just realtime cut scenes) look more like prerendered CGI.

 

[Geeforcer]

...

Grid computing drawing on the the limitless cpu cycles of the Meklar homeworld mainframe!

...

Limitless my ass... I can't remember when was the last time I've seen download speeds greater then a 1GB/s over here. Stupid humans are killing the Uniweb.