Insomniac games opens R&D Site to developers

[wowfactor]

In hope of helping the ps3 developing community, Insomniac opens the site. This is really nice thing from them.

Currently they have:
+Dynamic SPU Code
+Configuring VNC on PS3

http://www.insomniacgames.com/tech/techpage.php

 

[xmu]

And they've put up a bunch of presentations too, which is nice.

 

[Carl B]

I want to give a shout out to Rambullion, who's a new member that *tried* to start this thread earlier, but got caught up in out anti-spam net. Sorry Rambullion, it just happens to all new posters - but you're good to go now.

 

[patsu]

Finally ! A RSX article

This is interesting to a noob like me

Curved Surfaces on the RSX

8/2/07 - 12:00 PST - Posted by Mike Acton, Engine Director

While the Cell processor is certainly the heart of the Playstation 3, understanding its graphics processor (the RSX) is also an important part of the engine team's work. The game we're currently working on, Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (check out the trailer!), involves a lot of effects and other graphics processing. We're always experimenting with alternative ways to take advantage of the RSX. In another one of the Tech Team's weekly presentations, Rob Wyatt talked about the basics of drawing curves and curved surfaces completely on the RSX. Some content has been removed from this presentation because not all of the details are public, but the basics are definitely there! Enjoy.

http://www.insomniacgames.com/tech/articles/0807/files/curved_surfaces_on_the_rsx.pdf

Oh the gurus on B3D, please share your thoughts (It probably can't be done using other GPUs too).

 

[AlNom]

Oh the gurus on B3D, please share your thoughts (It probably can't be done using other GPUs too).

Why not? On the second page/slide he says, "Everything here applies to the PC too." And he goes on to document vertex programs.

I want to give a shout out to Rambullion, who's a new member that *tried* to start this thread earlier, but got caught up in out anti-spam net. Sorry Rambullion, it just happens to all new posters - but you're good to go now.

Ah ha! I knew I remembered seeing the webpage linked here before!

 

["Nerve-Damage"]

This is interesting to a noob like me



http://www.insomniacgames.com/tech/articles/0807/files/curved_surfaces_on_the_rsx.pdf

Oh the gurus on B3D, please share your thoughts (It probably can't be done using other GPUs too).

2nd page of the PDF states "Everything here applies to the PC too".


Edit: AlStrong beat me to the punch.

 

[patsu]

Why not? On the second page/slide he says, "Everything here applies to the PC too." And he goes on to document vertex programs.

Argh... I meant to type "It probably can be done on other GPUs too (because they look simple enough). Sorry for the mess up

 

[nAo]

Drawing curves that way is simple and clever, and also removes the need to handle dynamic vertex buffers as vertex data get moved from vertex buffers to setvertexshaderconstant() commands in the push buffers, which is often already handled as a ring buffer.

 

[Jawed]

I'm guessing this curve drawing (or ribbon or tube drawing) is useful when you want dynamically varying geometry. Would it be a win when rendering static geometry?

Ribbons would make nice leaves, I guess, while tubes would make nice stalks.

Jawed

 

[patsu]

The concept and implement looks straightforward enough... which begs the question why they need to remove any RSX slides in the original presentation at all.

Ah well, perhaps it's just that RSX can draw from SPU generated vertices (but we knew that already).

 

[DeanoC]

It certainly can be done on PC (*cough* I might have wrote a similar thing in Shader 2 or 3 or something ;-) ). It provenance is even older tho, I seem to recall the 3D Labs Permedia supported surfaces in Dx8? and OpenGl using essentially the same idea...

And TomF once talked bout a similar idea IIRC using fixed function matrix blending ALA Geforce 1 and Gamecube... Consider a matrix as a constant store (lerpable) with fixed 4 DP ops at the end.

Its a good technique

The removal of RSX stuff probably relates to exactly how they write the data into the pushbuffer and low level stuff like that.

 

[chris1515]

http://www.insomniacgames.com/tech/articles/0807/spu_ninja_homework_no_3.php

New articles about SPU homework a SPU training class for Insomniac programmer. They gave original code and optimised SPU implementation:

The main idea is that we introduce some problem to solve on the SPU and programmers will spend the next week or two working out a solution in their spare time. Each class we try to cover the details of different solutions and offer suggestions for better implementations.

http://www.insomniacgames.com/tech/articles/0807/beware_of_statics.php

An article about statics.

 

[Arwin]

That's just really cool, to see this code and the different solutions, and SPU versions. Thanks for sharing (you too, and even especially, Mike).