Naughty Dog using PS3 engine on PS4

[Arwin]

Part of NDs motivation from rewriting their engine last time was to get it into a format that could be shared with others more easily. So in that sense there were some multi-platform motivations.

Also, don't underestimate the seductive power of having code in a certain way on a certain platform (say, pc, single threaded) and porting that to other platforms, especially if at least one of them makes that really easy.

 

[tuna]

Their Jak-engine was written in Lisp and the original architect had left ND. That was probably the biggest reason for the new engine.

 

[Gitaroo]

How many are making a new engine?
I can name 5 devs: Konami, Capcom, Square Enix, Ubisoft and Bungie.

Konami made Fox Engine, and of I am not mistaken it took them at least 4 years.
Ubisoft made new engine for Watch Dogs, Disrupt, and they started developing the game in 2010.
Square made Luminous Engine and Capcom made Panta Rhei but I don't know when they started.
Bungie made a new engine for Destiny, no name so far, and their last game come out in 2010.

CD Project Red and IO-interactive won't be making new engines anytime soon that's for sure so who else made a new engine?
Is 343 making a new engine for the next gen?

some companies like Konami and even Square need a brand new engine much more than the rest; especially Konami. SE crystal tools engine is good for corridor games so far, and doesn't seems to help much with the kind of output they got. Like how many big budget titles have they put out on current gen yearly? Capcom is always very forward compare to many JP dev, and they have much higher game output than ND so rebuilding a game engine ready for next gen for all the future titles is more worth while. Ubi build new engine thats tailored for new multi platform IP that they are planning with mass marketing and planning to sell a bloat load for years to come, still make more sense.

 

[Cjail]

some companies like Konami and even Square need a brand new engine much more than the rest; especially Konami. SE crystal tools engine is good for corridor games so far, and doesn't seems to help much with the kind of output they got. Like how many big budget titles have they put out on current gen yearly? Capcom is always very forward compare to many JP dev, and they have much higher game output than ND so rebuilding a game engine ready for next gen for all the future titles is more worth while. Ubi build new engine thats tailored for new multi platform IP that they are planning with mass marketing and planning to sell a bloat load for years to come, still make more sense.

Sure, sure.
I wan't questioning their reason, sorry if it seemed that way.

 

[babybumb]

All ND cut scenes are rendered offline in-engine 60fps.

Maybe the ND PS4 games will actually look like that in game

 

[hesido]

All ND cut scenes are rendered offline in-engine 60fps.

Maybe the ND PS4 games will actually look like that in game

No, the games they ship did not have 60fps cut-scenes, they are all 30. They did a 60fps showcase once, can be found in a digital foundry article. And of course, it looks superb. I'm a sucker for 60fps.

 

[nigelhere]

Not surprised. It basically looks like a Next Gen game downgraded for current gen consoles.

It only lacks high resolution, AA, AF etc.

It has Global Illumination and Indirect Shadows. (Both don't work alongside each other i.e. if you see GI from the flashlight you won't see indirect shadows being cast upon).

Did I mention it also has sub surface scattering?

 

[JPT]

ND has the ICE team in house, ND employees have worked on the PS4. Heck even one of them has said on Twitter that he wrote the graphics driver and rendering API for PS4 (https://twitter.com/postgoodism and https://twitter.com/postgoodism/status/304373884860379136) . I have no doubt that they are well equipped to transition to PS4, if not even have their engine running already on the PS4.

Heck I'll go even one further, ND engine is what they are using to benchmark the PS4 I mean if your an engineer/programmer on the ICE team and you need an engine to run on your emulators/silicon, why not pick the one you got in house. And probably got plenty of overlap with the Phyre engine that other developers use for Vita & PS3, since ND/ICE stuff has been added to Phyre in the past. So getting ND's (state of the art?) engine running on PS4 probably is a win win.

 

[patsu]

Not surprised. It basically looks like a Next Gen game downgraded for current gen consoles.

It only lacks high resolution, AA, AF etc.

It has Global Illumination and Indirect Shadows. (Both don't work alongside each other i.e. if you see GI from the flashlight you won't see indirect shadows being cast upon).

Did I mention it also has sub surface scattering?

Yes, I was cursing at the back of my mind when I saw the occasional chuggings. "Goddamn it, they sacrificed the PS3 game for the PS4 version."

The game does feel like it's optimized for a higher spec'ed box. Hope to play it on PS4 sooner.

 

[tuna]

Yes, I was cursing behind my mind when I saw the occasional chuggings. "Goddamn it, they sacrificed the PS3 game for the PS4 version."

The game does feel like it's optimized for a higher spec'ed box. Hope to play it on PS4 sooner.

Uncharted 1 chugged quite a bit. Do not think they thought about PS4 when they made that.

 

[patsu]

My bad, "optimized" is the wrong word. "scoped for" is probably more accurate. ^_^

They obviously need to optimize the game for PS3.

The game is very ambitious, which makes me think it's more suitable for PS4.

I'm really hoping there is one coz I can play the game on my Vita in bed at the same time.

 

[Gitaroo]

ND has the ICE team in house, ND employees have worked on the PS4. Heck even one of them has said on Twitter that he wrote the graphics driver and rendering API for PS4 (https://twitter.com/postgoodism and https://twitter.com/postgoodism/status/304373884860379136) . I have no doubt that they are well equipped to transition to PS4, if not even have their engine running already on the PS4.

Heck I'll go even one further, ND engine is what they are using to benchmark the PS4 I mean if your an engineer/programmer on the ICE team and you need an engine to run on your emulators/silicon, why not pick the one you got in house. And probably got plenty of overlap with the Phyre engine that other developers use for Vita & PS3, since ND/ICE stuff has been added to Phyre in the past. So getting ND's (state of the art?) engine running on PS4 probably is a win win.

I believe many ppl are confuse with the ICE team and ND, they are work in the same building but no part of each other. I remember one of the guy from ICE team tweeted that they got FXAA working on PS3 and it was quick and quality was good. Someone asked him if it would be used in U3, and he replied he doesn't know because they are 2 separate entity.

 

[JPT]

I believe many ppl are confuse with the ICE team and ND, they are work in the same building but no part of each other. I remember one of the guy from ICE team tweeted that they got FXAA working on PS3 and it was quick and quality was good. Someone asked him if it would be used in U3, and he replied he doesn't know because they are 2 separate entity.

They might not be on the game teams, but they sure are in the loop and if you are doing R&D why would you just not grab something that is close and "industry standard" and where you got the knowledge about the Engine with you in the same building.

If you look at the twitter profile I linked to, it says he is a ND/ICE Team Programmer. It might be as with Insomniac they got their Engine team, game teams etc.

 

[Mianca]

(1) Adapt code in a way that allows to run the fidelity of "The Last of Us" in-game cutscenes in real time on the PS4.

(2) Next-gen game engine done.

 

[JPT]

So just for fun, what if they have adapted the engine to run on PS4 and the reason for pushing out the game on PS3 now, instead of late autumn as ND has done with other titles. Is because they actually going to push Last of Us as a launch game on the PS4...

Now, lets assume that is the plan, would it help sell consoles? Might it have been better to skip PS3 and just release on PS4?

 

[DieH@rd]

TLOU as a launch game for PS4.... would be beyond legendary. Game already looks nextgen right now.

Btw, in the documentary they talked that they had to put entire Joel's repertoire of animations [traversing, all weapons, all melee weapons, procedural close combat] in ram... in 4-5MB of ram.

 

[patsu]

They have 2 teams right ? What's the other team working on ?

 

[Bagel seed]

According to yosp, some SCE studios may have 3 teams. I think ND has enough employees for that now, at around 250.

Uncharted next gen is a given, some of them must be on that now in one way or another. I hope it's drastically re-imagined though. Like partially open world crossed with management sim elements.

 

[tuna]

They have 2 teams right ? What's the other team working on ?

Maybe Sony's biggest franchise besides GT?

 

[JPT]

According to yosp, some SCE studios may have 3 teams. I think ND has enough employees for that now, at around 250.

Uncharted next gen is a given, some of them must be on that now in one way or another. I hope it's drastically re-imagined though. Like partially open world crossed with management sim elements.

So it might look like this?

ND Teams:
1. ICE Team
2. Unchartered Team
3. The Last of Us Team

Insomniac

1. Engine Team
2. Game team in California
3. Game team in North (?) Carolina?

Sony Santa Monica

1. God of War
2. New IP that has been hinted on
3. People that help out other companies, ala The GameCompany, Ready at Dawn etc etc

Guerrila

1. Killzone
2. New IP

Can anybody colloborate this or have more clues to other studios?