Itagaki talks about X360/next-gen hardware

[ShootMyMonkey]

At least based on the sample videos from MS's WMV HD page, 2 GB is enough for 25 minutes of 1080p video. 2 GB is enough for 42 minutes at the lowest bitrate they have there, which is for 720p.

Actually most studies on WMV-HD shows that MS's claims about bitrates were not even near the truth of the matter. Their claim that it could match MPEG-4 at half the bitrate was flat out shown untrue in ALL corpus test sets. Really, to get HDTV stream quality at 720p, WMV HD needs anywhere from 8-18 Mbits... yes, it's that fidgety.

Also, one might wonder how Japanese developers fit their games on the GC's 1.5 GB discs.

Gamecube is supposedly several times faster than Xbox or PS2 when it comes to random access on disc (likely related to that smaller disc). So you don't need to make duplicates of a lot of files in order to keep things within the same cylinder range on disc while you're in a particular level.

but why shell out on months of raytracing when in-engine can produce very passable results (E3 demo) with the already created engine.

Surprising though it may be, those "months" of raytracing can potentially be cheaper than doing it in-engine. BTW, most of those months are in animation and test runs, not rendering. Game FMV is far from equal to movie FMV. FFX CG != FF7:AC, for example.

Where doing something in-engine would require working with the in-engine content and characters and producing more animations and sequences and scripting, which as you can guess, requires a lot of people and more extensive asset management... doing everything in modelling and animation packages means the work doesn't interfere with in-game assets and it requires a small localized staff. Often times, renders like you'd see in FFX don't really need to be farmed on current-day PCs. Maybe something like the ART VPS cards would be sufficient, and that's a far smaller investment. Also, more often than not, these types of renders are outsourced to studios that are specifically in the business of doing pre-rendered cinematics -- and the costs are comparatively low because they make up for the cost of maintaining their farms in volume of clients.

 

[Qroach]

Gamecube is supposedly several times faster than Xbox or PS2 when it comes to random access on disc (likely related to that smaller disc). So you don't need to make duplicates of a lot of files in order to keep things within the same cylinder range on disc while you're in a particular level.

You don't need to make duplicates of files as it is currently on ps2 or xbox, I can't see anyone wanting to do that currently, it's just not needed.

 

[jvd]

How about divx 6

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/video/20050617/index.html

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Surprising though it may be, those "months" of raytracing can potentially be cheaper than doing it in-engine. BTW, most of those months are in animation and test runs, not rendering. Game FMV is far from equal to movie FMV. FFX CG != FF7:AC, for example.

Wathcing the FFX in game CGI sequencies, and seeing the FFVII demo from E3, I don't think they're far removed in IQ. This gen the resources needed for CGI were far and away more than needed for in game - low polys, lower textures, no shaders etc. in game. Next-gen, the assets needed for in game are similar to CGI (depending on whether you're looking at PGR3's close up buildings or distant scenery as to how much assets need to be CGI like ). Again, going by the FFVII E3 demo, those models, textures, shaders, are all needed for in game. Why duplicate all that effort in an offline render too? Made sense for this gen as the assets were very different, but next-gen the quality will be too similar to be worth having one guy model a town in 10 million polys for in game, and another model same town in 15 million to raytrace!

It all depends on the level of visual difference and what's attainable in-game. But current level FF cutscenes are, from what I've seen, in the realms of possibility in realtime (this is a can of worms we've opened before!) and so I'd expect cutscenes to be mostly ingame.

 

[Inane_Dork]

Actually most studies on WMV-HD shows that MS's claims about bitrates were not even near the truth of the matter. Their claim that it could match MPEG-4 at half the bitrate was flat out shown untrue in ALL corpus test sets. Really, to get HDTV stream quality at 720p, WMV HD needs anywhere from 8-18 Mbits... yes, it's that fidgety.

The whole "half MPEG4" I had not heard before. I'm just going by the actual bitrates of the video they have at the site. Here is the page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

Batman Begins - 1080p - 143 seconds - 164 MB on disk - 10.38 Mbps
Amazon - 720p - 102 seconds - 79.4 MB on disk - 6.38 Mbps

Both, btw, are completely stunning. They completely blow away what I normally see in games.

Back to the math. Going by file size, we have:

2 GB of 1080p = 29 minutes
2 GB of 720p = 43 minutes

Gamecube is supposedly several times faster than Xbox or PS2 when it comes to random access on disc (likely related to that smaller disc). So you don't need to make duplicates of a lot of files in order to keep things within the same cylinder range on disc while you're in a particular level.

The point is that Japanese developers can make big current gen games that fit in 1.5 GB. If that's possible with any file arrangement, 8.5 GB should be enough for most of them.

 

[wco81]

To upgrade from DVD to an HD-DVD drive, wouldn't they also need HDMI outputs? Or would they just upgrade the drive without offering movie playback?

I'm not sure what kind of hardware is needed for AACS, which HD-DVD will use. The copy-protection measures are said to be so stringent that the MS VP of Windows Media division said on AVS that he didn't think they could do a software player on XP.

So that may be another obstacle.

Also, didn't they say the X360 will be hard to open because they wanted to discourage modders?

 

[aaaaa00]

Actually most studies on WMV-HD shows that MS's claims about bitrates were not even near the truth of the matter. Their claim that it could match MPEG-4 at half the bitrate was flat out shown untrue in ALL corpus test sets. Really, to get HDTV stream quality at 720p, WMV HD needs anywhere from 8-18 Mbits... yes, it's that fidgety.

The whole "half MPEG4" I had not heard before.

I always throught the claim was half MPEG2, and significantly better than MPEG4.

MPEG4 has been improved a lot recently, so I don't know if the statement still holds. They're probably close to equal now, though VC1 still probably encodes and plays back with less processing power.

 

[passby]

Where doing something in-engine would require working with the in-engine content and characters and producing more animations and sequences and scripting, which as you can guess, requires a lot of people and more extensive asset management... doing everything in modelling and animation packages means the work doesn't interfere with in-game assets and it requires a small localized staff. Often times, renders like you'd see in FFX don't really need to be farmed on current-day PCs. Maybe something like the ART VPS cards would be sufficient, and that's a far smaller investment. Also, more often than not, these types of renders are outsourced to studios that are specifically in the business of doing pre-rendered cinematics -- and the costs are comparatively low because they make up for the cost of maintaining their farms in volume of clients.

That makes a lot of sense. I'm in the middle of delivering a product of many integrated components myself, and certainly appreciates the potential cost savings in your explanation.

Plus in the case of FF, we can't expect a game engine that revolves around town/dungeon explorations and turn-based battles to model gigantic airship battles and whatever the script requires - in the same way that we don't expect a racing game engine to model a virtual fighter combat sequence.

 

[PC-Engine]

Meh, if its a RPG there's no problem in coming in multiple discs (PSx games FF had 4 cds remember? There was no prob about it), in a fighter, how many CG do they plan to create?

I myself prefer Realtime rendered, MGS is amazingly cinematic and Immersive because it doesnt use CG, games that suddenlly switch to CG tend to put me out of the immersion, at least for some moments.

THe majority of stuff can now be done in realtime with next gen, CG should only be used for the "World exploding" and stuff like that that clearlly isnt possible real time.

Agreed. FMV needs to die or be used less. More realtime cutscenes heh even interactive QTEs like in RE4, Shenmue.

 

[pegisys]

didn't bugie out source the cutscene animation in halo2 and it was done in the engine, and it looked great, they can still have another team do the scripting and animation for the cutscene and use them in the engine

 

[quest55720]

I was hoping the next gen was going to end CGI cut scenes. Cut scenes pull me in much better when they use the game engine. It is hard to go from a beautifull CGI back to the game. It is like going from the T1 at work to my 19.6 dial up at home.

 

[passby]

It is hard to go from a beautifull CGI back to the game. It is like going from the T1 at work to my 19.6 dial up at home.

That can be fixed easily. The Killzone demo is public proof you can pre-render FMVs that look in-game. Reasonable idea actually. In-game assets are still needed for reference, but work can proceed with less impact on the core development staff. I think many 'realtime' scenes today are actually pre-rendered FMVs - except they either used in-game assets, or combined the 1fp per second output from development kits into the smooth flowing scenes we see in the final product.

 

[randycat99]

I have no qualms about where cutscenes come from this generation or next. I think the whole "in-game engine cut scene" scene is ok, but hardly justification to eschew all other styles that existed prior. If the scope of the artist vision can fit into an in-game cutscene, fine. If the scope encompasses a scene better suited to the fullest implementation of pre-rendered CG available, I say go for it. This is all about visual entertainment. Whatever vehicle seems best for the job, should be the one the artist throw's fullest effort into. I only ask that the artistic expression is taken to its limit.

My own astute videogaming skills are fully adept at following a story regardless of the generation format. I don't feel any less or more "hardcore" for enjoying the visuals, regardless of the generation format. Just make it look as good as it can be.

 

[PARANOiA]

I think that the makers of DOA should take their resources away from designing FMV's and put them to good use on their damn game mechanics.

DOA's FMV looks great, as does the game, but they play terribly - not a patch on Namco or Sega's fighers. Now, Ninja Gaiden used some fantastic in-game cinematics, which were fantastic, however.

If Square/Namco made the comment, I might pay more attention. But they're not.

 

[talyn99]

Qroach
Senior Member



Joined: 06 Feb 2002
Posts: 3023

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 8:08 pm Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I still think MS will switch to HD-DVD before it's said and done. or release on one format and offer an upgrade for the early adopters. I just have this feeling you can easily take the DVD drive out of the xbox 360, and it's part of the reason they designed the face plates like they did.

So if a DVD drive fails, they could sell a replacement that can be "easily" installed by anyone that understands how to install a PC DVD drive. Probably a screwless installation too. Aside from the harddrive which could be replaced easily now that it's an external attachment, the DVD drive is the next likely thing to go bad in a console. Imagine, you DVD drive goes bad and you don't need to send the entire unit in for repair or warrenty (or worse, buy a new machine).

has it crossed anyone's mind why we haven't seen an xbox 360 shot without the face plate attached?

I agree

 

[Farid]

I think that the makers of DOA should take their resources away from designing FMV's and put them to good use on their damn game mechanics.

They're outsourcing their GCi cutscenes.

This would be one of the reason why Itagaki would prefer FMW over RT cut-scenes. FMV can be easily outsourced, while RT cut-scenes have to use the game engine and therefore need someone who know the engine and the editor, read people from the developement team itself.

That holds specially true with games like FF, which use outsourced FMV coming from different country (EX-Machina in France, for instance, work on FF CGi). Complete RT game would basicly force them to do everything in-house.

 

[jvd]

eh if i wanted to watch a movie , i'd rent one , i like the cut scenes as i never leave the game . It was a huge reason why i couldn't get into psone ffs because one second i'm looking at crappy grpahics and the next i'm in a movie and then boom right back to crappy graphics . It just didn't work at all for me . Of course everyone is diffrent



Anyway perhaps hd-dvd is the big announcement in japan ? THat would make me happy as the only movie i care about is coming out on hd-dvd (evil dead )

 

[PARANOiA]

They're outsourcing their GCi cutscenes.

This would be one of the reason why Itagaki would prefer FMW over RT cut-scenes. FMV can be easily outsourced, while RT cut-scenes have to use the game engine and therefore need someone who know the engine and the editor, read people from the developement team itself.

That holds specially true with games like FF, which use outsourced FMV coming from different country (EX-Machina in France, for instance, work on FF CGi). Complete RT game would basicly force them to do everything in-house.

I did not know that. Thanks for the heads up! Makes much more sense now (since it probably has a hip-pocket impact) too

 

[AlNom]

didn't bungie out source the cutscene animation in halo2 and it was done in the engine, and it looked great, they can still have another team do the scripting and animation for the cutscene and use them in the engine

Nope, Joe Staten and the peons from Bungie did all the work.