Killzone Prerendered E3 Trailer Talk

[Thegameman]

After the overwhelming response to the video, don't you think it was quite a bit unfair that neither the true creators, nor the companies supplying the tools were able to take the right credit for their hard work - just because Sony decided to capitalize on the false belief that it was a realtime PS3 demo?

Escuse me credict for what?

As a PS3 game the Killzone demo look mind blowing as a GC is just another one of the bunch,no reason for particular credict if in fact is not real time.

 

[zidane1strife]

The poly counts aren't even close to Spirits, even today on realtime apps.
And solving physically accurate dynamics for highpoly objects is still slow.
The dynamics in game engines are not even close to that accuracy, but they suffice for games and the lowpoly objects in them.

My point is not that it's of the same quality, but that the clothing animation which was something that was lacking in most cg a few years back is very much present in very good quality in realtime

 

[dubert]

Here it is : http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/updates.php?user=HardWood

Its the second one from the bottom

Oh yes. That is not even close to the detail of a real HV. It's missing the diffuse lighting completely for the smoke. And even in this resolution, you can see slices in one of the slow motion views. The diffuse component is actually one of the heavier parts of a volumetric, since the voxel has to cast shadows to each sample, from itself. This seems to be a nice trick tho. But it's not even close to real voxels. And the texture doesn't seem to billow procedurally, which means it's pre calculated using "impostor" slices for that particular view direction. It is fairly simple to do the center *flame* using slices and zbuffer, and some interpolation on the textures. Besides, the background graphics are extremely lowpoly and simple. With only a single explosion effect. Do the same with diffuse lighting, and volumetric textured shadows, using more than 100 slices, and to hundreds of particles, then you'll come close to the KZ trailer.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

My point is not that it's of the same quality, but that the clothing animation which was something that was lacking in most cg a few years back is very much present in very good quality in realtime

Where exactly have you seen better cloth than Spirits, done in realtime??? Except for simple flags and cloaks, I haven't even seen any kind of clothing, not even in techdemos...

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Most - if not all - realtime smoke/fire effects are done with texture-mapped quad polygons used as particles. They are not volumetric, not 3D, and the textures aren't animated. Not that this would be a bad technique (we use it all the time as well) but it can never look as good as procedural voxel-based 3D effects like what LW does, or what Digital Domain used on movies like The day after tomorrow for tornadoes and water...

 

[zidane1strife]

Oh yes. That is not even close to the detail of a real HV. It's missing the diffuse lighting completely for the smoke. And even in this resolution, you can see slices in one of the slow motion views. The diffuse component is actually one of the heavier parts of a volumetric, since the voxel has to cast shadows to each sample, from itself. This seems to be a nice trick tho. But it's not even close to real voxels. And the texture doesn't seem to billow procedurally, which means it's pre calculated using "impostor" slices for that particular view direction. It is fairly simple to do the center *flame* using slices and zbuffer, and some interpolation on the textures. Besides, the background graphics are extremely lowpoly and simple. With only a single explosion effect. Do the same with diffuse lighting, and volumetric textured shadows, using more than 100 slices, and to hundreds of particles, then you'll come close to the KZ trailer.

EDIT GOT PICS MIXED UP!!! now fixed

To that in some areas, cause in others it sure looks like n64 low-rez smoke and fire effects:
http://jeremy.lwidof.net/demoreel/images/shotlist/shotlist_004.jpg
or just a simple traditional particle(aka gun nozzle fire):
http://jeremy.lwidof.net/demoreel/images/shotlist/shotlist_001.jpg

In any case, as I said the cell's calculating all the movement of the debris, and maybe even all the gphx related calcs, while doing that volumetric smoke and at 2.4Ghz most likely. And again while it may not be the same it looks quite close to me and probably so to the avg. joe.

Where exactly have you seen better cloth than Spirits, done in realtime??? Except for simple flags and cloaks, I haven't even seen any kind of clothing, not even in techdemos...

I was thinking more of Aki and Cid's particular choice of stiff-like clothing, and the abundance of armors. But there are indeed a few characters with t-shirts and what not that move decently.

I was personally referring to the FFVII demo in which every piece of clothing seems to've some physics behind it(even cloud's shirt!). And it is indeed true that from what I recall seeing of cg videos in the 90s adequate clothing movement was barely there, and I do believe I heard several in the field refer to it as a very difficult problem to animate clothing correctly(along with realistic water, and realistic humans, as one of the "holy grails" of cg).

edited

 

[Laa-Yosh]

In any case, as I said the cell's calculating all the movement of the debris, and maybe even all the gphx related calcs, while doing that volumetric smoke and at 2.4Ghz most likely.

Tell me know, what on earth is your basis for stating things like that - do you have any technical knowledge bo back up that claim or are you just talking out of your ***?

 

[Titanio]

Tell me know, what on earth is your basis for stating things like that - do you have any technical knowledge bo back up that claim or are you just talking out of your ***?

What do you think is cacluating the rigid body simulation? The explosion dynamics?

It's pretty obvious what zidane meant.

On a general note, I think some are arguing at cross-purposes here. Obviously dubert is heavily concerned with technical faithfulness, whilst I think others are merely concerned with what the final picture looks like. If to some, the gas station demo presents a similar visual quality of explosion to those seen in the KZ demo, so be it.

 

[zidane1strife]

Tell me know, what on earth is your basis for stating things like that - do you have any technical knowledge bo back up that claim or are you just talking out of your ***?

No need to get all ruff on me, mate!

The guy in the background says it's all running of off the cell processor, at least in the vid I have. Later he goes on to state how it's an example of what rsx and cell can accomplish, though

 

[dubert]

To that in some areas, cause in others it sure looks like n64 low-rez smoke and fire effects:
http://jeremy.lwidof.net/demoreel/images/shotlist/shotlist_001.jpg
or just a simple traditional particle(aka gun nozzle fire):
http://jeremy.lwidof.net/demoreel/images/shotlist/shotlist_001.jpg

In any case, as I said the cell's calculating all the movement of the debris, and maybe even all the gphx related calcs, while doing that volumetric smoke and at 2.4Ghz most likely. And again while it may not be the same it looks quite close to me and probably so to the avg. joe.

In any case, it is an advancement in realtime explosions for sure. But it's really nothing amazing.
And I think it could definately be achieved with competing hardware too.
The Unreal engine used in a 360 game, called Condemned, has neat volumetric lights in it, that include shadows from the surroundings and characters, but the resolution of those maps for each slice are quite low. But no diffuse component, nor procedural texturing. Just constant colored slices with low res shadow maps.
Hopefully this wasn't too off topic.

 

[Bad_Boy]

Here it is : http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/updates.php?user=HardWood

Its the second one from the bottom

or here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8025980825115926132&q=playstation+3
I put the link on the previous page of this thread, I guess nobody paid attention to it.
It's all good though.

The Unreal engine used in a 360 game, called Condemned

Condemned uses the unreal engine? 3? I did not know that. Cool.

 

[dubert]

or here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8025980825115926132&q=playstation+3
I put the link on the previous page of this thread, I guess nobody paid attention to it.
It's all good though.


Condemned uses the unreal engine? 3? I did not know that. Cool.

That is what I heard, but I cannot confirm 100%, until I find a trustable link.

 

[Qroach]

Comdemned was created by Monlith. It doesn't use the unreal engine, it's built off the lithtech engine (or whatever that engine is called now).

 

[dubert]

Comdemned was created by Monlith. It doesn't use the unreal engine, it's built off the lithtech engine (or whatever that engine is called now).

Yeah that should be the case. I just overheard it from a friend not in the business, just an average gamer.
In any case, the volumetrics are nifty. Nothing special but a neat effect.

 

[mckmas8808]

So dubert if Killzone's E3 graphics are impossible, while at the same time we all know Gears of War looks great are you dissappointed to see such weak next-gen consoles come out this year and next year? I ask because everyone knows that every year devs get more comfortable with a console's hardware and it seems to me that if Killzone is impossible while something like MGS4's trailer (which was rushed and made on a weak PS3 devkit) can be done in real-time; then what's the problem?Is it the hardware? Did the hardware come out to soon? Does the software to program these supposed beast not good enough? I mean if what you say is true then I guess Nintendo was real when they said diminishing returns.

 

[dubert]

So dubert if Killzone's E3 graphics are impossible, while at the same time we all know Gears of War looks great are you dissappointed to see such weak next-gen consoles come out this year and next year? I ask because everyone knows that every year devs get more comfortable with a console's hardware and it seems to me that if Killzone is impossible while something like MGS4's trailer (which was rushed and made on a weak PS3 devkit) can be done in real-time; then what's the problem?Is it the hardware? Did the hardware come out to soon? Does the software to program these supposed beast not good enough? I mean if what you say is true then I guess Nintendo was real when they said diminishing returns.

The thing is, that people expect the quality you get from raytracers, and all the effects you can achieve with prerendering. I'm not disappointed on next gen consoles, I think they are great, but you shouldn't expect these kinds of leaps in technology within this timeframe. But the games for the next gen look great. We are getting all sorts of cool "new" features for realtime graphics, that can be ran at good framerates. Like parallax mapping, normalmaps, more complex postprocess effects, HDR, etc. These have been available for a while with highend PC graphics cards, but not in the level that you could use them in game engines unless all consumers had the latest cards. Doom 3 was a step forward, which sported normalmaps and neat perpixel shading. But coming close to a raytracer, no.
Prerendered animations don't rely on normalmaps to make it look like there are alot of geometry, most of them just do have alot of it. Because a raytracer doesn't try to achieve interactive framerates, you can add all the detail you want, but it will of course increase the rendertimes.

 

[Tesselator]

This thread has reached the bottom... I especially like how one guy shows the UT2K7 image and says that this is the proof for KZ being possible in realtime... ROTFL...

Well I think we all deserve a break with this stuff. This is a vastly
deep subject allot of which go beyond simple powers of unfocused
or untrained observation. I think no one here is or should be implying
the KV won't be a beautiful game. Nor should anyone be thinking
that the newest round of hardware offerings from either MS or SCE
in any way "suck" as one poster so stated. The differences between
some of the effects we are discussing here are quite subtle viewed
individually others not so much so. Together the here dubbed "real"
FX come together to provide more visual sensation, a greater sense
of reality, and therefor more intense interaction to the player than
their here dubbed "faked" counterparts. This is relevant to many
things including user expectation levels and even down to the quality
low or high, of the users available display device. How many people
do you think will be hooking up their new PS3 or XB-360 to a five
year old standard television set? I would venture to guess more
than 50% of PS3/XB2 owners will be.

The topic at hand to me is not user perception of said effects which
is relative and varied. To me the topic is did Sony show those of
us who know the difference the actual abilities of the PS3 or did
they offer information convective of "about" what to expect. This
thread and the links to off-site discussions have pretty much
answered that question. It was rendered. To my mind there still
remains some question as to whether or not Sony intended to be
forthcoming with these facts. Whatever was the case initially
it does seem that the truth is being disclosed at least to some
degree currently. I see this as a good thing.

As this topic evolves into trying to discern the differences between
the looks of rendered graphics from such software as Lightwave3D
and that created in computational real-time by XB-360 and PS3 I
would like to ask everyone to consider even such a simple thing
as trying to define a single color. Ask 100 people to describe the
color red and you will likely get 100 very different answers. Ask
them to describe the "quality" of a red lightsource in a given scene
digital or real, and most will not even know where to begin.

But do not consider this without considering some of the other
principles in the same axiom. We all know when we see a picture
we like even if we cannot describe the aspects of the image that
make us attracted to it in the first place. Furthermore humans
seem to be better at comparative analysis rather than the
observation of isolated or dissimilar phenomena.

​

 

[Carl B]

You see how things are? What they've come to?

Here, a thread I would never read because it has 'flaming' written all over it, I'm forced to browse over because it's become the subject of a debate back 'home.'

Dubert I *was* going to ask you for some means of verifying your employment and/or position in the industry, but after reading over this thread I think it's safe to say that either way, you know your sh*t when it comes to this stuff.

That being said I would ask *why* you bothered to start this whole thing off in the first place? I echo the thought of others n this thread when I say it really does seem rather immature and unprofessional to do what you're doing. I can understand that you may personally dislike Sony and/or prefer 360 and wish to bring your own personal experience to the debate, but really there would be much better ways of addressing that on your end than the whole trailer re-hash. A thread entitled 'Limits of Next-gen real-time rendering' put in the console technology forum would have been much better I feel in terms of leaving the 'soldiers' at home, and would have promoted a more civil debate while at the same time allowing you to address Killzone specifically.

This whole thread is just a ruin of intellect, and to be honest if you want to post anything in fact confirming your position in the industry/proximity to the KZ trailer, it would probably aid greatly in silencing your detractors across the web, because I should not be having to do that for you on another forum without even being familiar with you.

 

[Bad_Boy]

I think what dubert was trying to say was that the way that killzone was rendered, there is no way hardware could do that in real time technically. From the CGI process stand point. On the other hand from a game developers standpoint there are other ways to "fake", if you wil, the same visuals you see in cg movies, and be able to run them in real time.

The hair for example, individual strands of hair (like nalu or luna) would be a waste unless your engine had the power to do it effiently. So another way to do it would be to use alpha textures to fake the hair to give it the same feeling of strands of hair. (FFII tech demo, and i beleive the molina demo didnt use individual strands of hair)

Or the real volumetric smoke he was refering to, which he mentioned took minutues to render. Obviously nvidia/sony have figure out a way around that to do it in real time and make it look just as good. The common every day Joe wouldnt know the difference.

I've probably mentioned it many times while posting here, and probably continue to. I think its really the job of game developers to find new ways to do things you see in high production cg movies, but to recreate the same feeling and visuals in a real-time game. That said, I think its very possible for Killzone to be done, even if "faked", but still create very close visuals. Like others said before the final result is the one the eyes see and is the one that counts. Titanio put this better than I can in a few pages ago. Kinda hard for me to explain, I was never good with wording but I hope that made enough sense so some of you know what I mean.

 

[mckmas8808]

The thing is, that people expect the quality you get from raytracers, and all the effects you can achieve with prerendering. I'm not disappointed on next gen consoles, I think they are great, but you shouldn't expect these kinds of leaps in technology within this timeframe. But the games for the next gen look great. We are getting all sorts of cool "new" features for realtime graphics, that can be ran at good framerates. Like parallax mapping, normalmaps, more complex postprocess effects, HDR, etc. These have been available for a while with highend PC graphics cards, but not in the level that you could use them in game engines unless all consumers had the latest cards. Doom 3 was a step forward, which sported normalmaps and neat perpixel shading. But coming close to a raytracer, no.
Prerendered animations don't rely on normalmaps to make it look like there are alot of geometry, most of them just do have alot of it. Because a raytracer doesn't try to achieve interactive framerates, you can add all the detail you want, but it will of course increase the rendertimes.

That's all fine and dandy, but I expected a bigger jump between launch games (i.e. Call of Duty 2), other first gen games (i.e. Gears of War), and future next-gen games. I'm not a programmer at all. I just love to play videogames and I love to read about how they are made. But I really hope you are horribly wrong with your assetment about the future of next-gen games.If you are correct then me and litterly millions of other people will dread next-gen games. Well everybody expect Nintendo Revolution owners because at least they have the next-gen controller. I'm sorry but if games aren't going to get that much better than Gears of War then why are you even excited? You've seen the excitement that a video like KZ or Motorstorm can do to people. Even editors of multimillion dollar magazines stated that the KZ is what they expected from next-gen systems. Again if you are right the world is at a loss here.Another question, have you seen the Motorstorm video? If so do you think it is possible on next-gen systems?