Heavenly Sword pre E3 hype?

[Titanio]

You mentioned some postprocessing of the trailer outside of the engine before - it doesn't look like it, but was any AA added at that stage? My guess is no judging by some shots, but word from yourself would be most excellent. Thanks!

Honest answer is that I don't know... Shake (the post-processing software) is fairly complex and requires an expert (our lead artist) to work with, what exactly he did I don't fully know.

But as a rendering person, it could blur (low-pass filter) in both the spatial and temporal domain and it could extract edges using the z-buffer...

Hehe, thanks!

I guess it's purely subjective, but when you look at it now, from an aliasing point-of-view do you think it looks as good as these shots and this trailer? From a general point of view (i.e. how's progress?)?

edit - also, the camera model you mention..to clarify, that's the game's own camera model? Its effect sounds a little similar to what you're saying Shake could do.

 

[3roxor]

Have you already started too look at possible uses for those cell spe's

 

[DeanoC]

Have you already started too look at possible uses for those cell spe's

Yes

 

[DeanoC]

Hehe, thanks!

I guess it's purely subjective, but when you look at it now, from an aliasing point-of-view do you think it looks as good as these shots and this trailer? From a general point of view (i.e. how's progress?)?

edit - also, the camera model you mention..to clarify, that's the game's own camera model? Its effect sounds a little similar to what you're saying Shake could do.

Take off the DOF and motion blur and you have the in-game. We have some DOF in-game now, so its pretty similar (thought the in-game DOF isn't up to Shakes standard yet).

The camera model is in-game, we take the frame, filter it, spin it around an axis, colour it and mix it all back together as a crude simulation of the optics in a real camera. (see Wreckless articles for the basics).

 

[Titanio]

Excellent stuff - many thanks for your answers!

If I may ask one more - motion blur in-game, yay or nay (or maybe)?

 

[DeanoC]

Excellent stuff - many thanks for your answers!

If I may ask one more - motion blur in-game, yay or nay (or maybe)?

Wil has written a quick proof of concept of in-game motion blur. We will have something thats for sure...

 

[ralexand]

Cool, so your camera effects prevents aliasing like this from taking place.

If the effects are that dramatic who needs AA?:

 

[MechanizedDeath]

Cool, so your camera effects prevents aliasing like this from taking place.

If the effects are that dramatic who needs AA?:

http://media.xboxyde.com/gallery/public/1483/799_0005.jpg

When you think about it though, HS pics are also at twice the resolution. So the blurring of the DOF/motion-blur will have a greater effect at 1080p than 720p, which that shot is at. I personally hope the final game supports 1080p. Hell, now I'm hoping every PS3 game supports 1080p, if we can expect image quality to be that good. PEACE.

 

[3roxor]

Depends on what the penalty is for using that high resolution.

 

[Titanio]

Excellent stuff - many thanks for your answers!

If I may ask one more - motion blur in-game, yay or nay (or maybe)?

Wil has written a quick proof of concept of in-game motion blur. We will have something thats for sure...

Cheers for the answers!

I'd second the questions on the SPEs if you're able to answer (and perhaps more specifically ask what kind of use you might make of them - anything out of the ordinary, anything to do with rendering, for example?), and also how many dudes we might be able to have on the field at once (I'd read "several thousand" in Edge, if you can be any more specific it'd be wonderful).

Many thanks again for taking the time to answer - it's very much appreciated as I'm sure others will agree!

 

[ralexand]

Cool, so your camera effects prevents aliasing like this from taking place.

If the effects are that dramatic who needs AA?:

http://media.xboxyde.com/gallery/public/1483/799_0005.jpg

When you think about it though, HS pics are also at twice the resolution. So the blurring of the DOF/motion-blur will have a greater effect at 1080p than 720p, which that shot is at. I personally hope the final game supports 1080p. Hell, now I'm hoping every PS3 game supports 1080p, if we can expect image quality to be that good. PEACE.

Personally I think outputting that 1080p resolution is pretty useless since there aren't any tvs out there currently that can display it at 60fps but I think it would be effective for downsampling AA of a lower resolution.

 

[wco81]

Is the hair suppose to be like dreads or clumpy?

What would it take to make the hair have fine, individual strands?

Take away details from the background?

 

[DeanoC]

hey Dean, what framerate is the outdoor scenes currently running at?

Outdoor scenes of the complexity of the trailer are currently slow about 5fps I think. Thats over 2000 real guys (there are visibly more but far away there not proper guys) with the general shadow system (its a CPU killer for so many entities, its at the top of my list to be moved off the main core),
We aren't even close to getting this stuff working optimally yet...

Have there been any downgrades in order to get a steady 30 fps?

Also, how many max charachters can we plan on seeing on a battlefield?

We are a long way from final, so steady fps aren't an issue yet. We are confident that the battlefield scene is viable on final target hardware.

 

[DeanoC]

Cool, so your camera effects prevents aliasing like this from taking place.

I wouldn't say its purely the camera effects... Just that if people think we have AA and I know we haven't, its one possible explanition for the softer look.

As several people have noted, some of the jaggies are visible in our shots, so clearly we don't have any magic AA going on... I have to say personally I've never really thought "Damn we need AA", so we must be doing something right...

 

[MechanizedDeath]

I'll second Titanio. Thanks for the answers, Deano. PEACE.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Presumably you're not on RSX, so how are you factoring in Cell<>RSX communication? Is that something to tackle later, or can you work in some ideas during development now? Do you see the Cell<>RSX communication as helping a little or lot or not at all with current rednering problems (like DOF or your shadows)?

 

[DeanoC]

Is the hair suppose to be like dreads or clumpy?

Its part of the concept art, long dreadlocky thing.

It will get smoother in time (less visible segments) and material shader still need work IMO.

What would it take to make the hair have fine, individual strands?

Take away details from the background?

Better shaders may make it look more hair like, but individual strands are just not feasible.

The physics simulation is doing roughly hundred constrained colliding joints, o.k. when its pushed on an SPE we will get more but then there are lots of enemies who could do with dangly bits

 

[DeanoC]

Presumably you're not on RSX, so how are you factoring in Cell<>RSX communication? Is that something to tackle later, or can you work in some ideas during development now? Do you see the Cell<>RSX communication as helping a little or lot or not at all with current rednering problems (like DOF or your shadows)?

Obviously I can't comment on hardware but Cell<>RSX is an area to look at in the future.

There are lots nitty gritty details that the actual techniques will live or die on, to be worked out before we know for certain.

 

[ralexand]

We aren't even close to getting this stuff working optimally yet.

Thanks, Deano. Looks like we won't see too many playable ps3 titles at TGS.

Are you guys going to be showing the game at TGS, Deano?

 

[Titanio]

We saw some level of destruction in the trailer - is there environmental destruction on a grander scale elsewhere, or is that what would be typical?

Also, is the game world open or level-based? How big is the world, or if level-based, how big would one area/level be?

Cheers again Deano

edit - also, any word on whether there'll be an online component? I recall Tameem mentioning that you were experimenting with online fighting systems with "lots of players" - is that part of the plan still, or..?