Heavenly Sword Developer Interview

[Ben-Nice]

However, he says Ninja Theory is happy to take advantage of the benefits offered by PS3's processing power. "Certainly PS3 hardware affords a bit of luxury. We had some of the development team saying 'but we're spending half of the CPU's processing power just on [the main character's] hair'. But we're arguing 'the hair's a really important part of her character, it's what makes her beautiful, striking and feminine.'


http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3044&Itemid=2

 

[mckmas8808]

Okay so what's the truth of the processing power and her hair? I've seen way too many different quotes on this.

 

[Titanio]

It's one SPU being spent on hair. The comment is pretty obviously relaying the (exagerrated) exasperation of some staff with regard to how much power they were spending on it - one SPU is afterall, a lot, but then depending on what lengths you go to, hair is a very complex problem! The comment is not meant to be literal - the article elsewhere gets more specific and talks about a single SPU.

I'm sure one of the devs could clarify further for those still unsure, however. Oh, and this article was posted in the HS thread in the games forum.

 

[Mmmkay]

The SPU usage comment was cleared up on Ninja Theory's forums:

http://www.ninjatheory.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1400&postcount=18

We have a single SPU dedicated to procedural systems. Primarily this is the hair but it also includes the cloth systems as well. So the hair isn't using all the power of a single SPU, apologies if the article came off that way. We're only just scratching the surface of what we can do here so I'm sure it will only get better

I had a bit of deja vu when I read next-gen the article. When I saw the plug at the end that I realised that they were publishing an excerpt of the EDGE article on Heavenly Sword.

 

[Titanio]

Ahh, thanks for that Mmmkay. It makes slightly more sense.