New PGR3 update..

[EndR]

(taken from GAF)
http://forums.gaming-age.com/showthread.php?t=55398

So there's only time for a short piece on PGR3 this week, but quite an interesting one nonetheless. What follows is an actual unlit, pre-effects PGR3 game texture, which shows the front of a building in New York City. As always, this was pretty much a random texture I selected from the archive. Click the thumbnail below to see the image at actual size (1024x1024 pixels)!

It might look a bit plain in its 'raw' form, but this is just a 1/4 of the story ... as well as the regular texture (called the diffuse layer), there is also the index channel (is it glass, metal, brick etc.?), the specular map (the shininess of the material), and the bump map (adds light and shadow to the raised areas) on top of that! In fact, I'll see if I can interrogate the texture artists some more in the future for some more info... Smiley

But that's not all. Imagine an entire city of textures at this high level of detail. How many textures would you need? Yes, it's thousands and thousands! The following image has been going around our studio this week, so I thought I'd share it with you also. It's a crop sheet of some of the New York City textures which are featured in the game. Again, make sure you click the thumbnail to see the full-size image.

Pretty incredible eh? Obviously this picture has been scaled down for practical use, but it has been made entirely from full-size textures like the one above. Here's what the building looks like in the game engine:

Remember, that's just New York. There are literally gigabytes of textures! The level of detail still amazes me. I can't wait! Smiley

 

[pc999]

Just

 

[deathstar121]

Is this a racing game? or an adventure game? show the damn cars already.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Remember, that's just New York. There are literally gigabytes of textures! The level of detail still amazes me. I can't wait!

Nice to see one of the main advantages in having lots of RAM, but how does this bode for future games and storage? Gigabytes of textures for scenery, and then there'll be vehicle models. Oblivion has half it's DVD space taken up wth 50 hours of voice work.

The question over 'is DVD enough for XB360' rears its head again. At the time of arguments I think generally it came out that high density optical media really wasn't needed next-gen, going by current data consumption rates. But if already we're seeing these sorts of pressures on media is DVD gonna be enough? And how many games will afford this much work? Maybe it'll only be a handful of games with this much content? But in those cases, surely games with much less content will look very much inferior? PGR is gonna look great with all these high-detail textures. Any racer with much less artwork isn't gonna look as good. That's gonna push for high cost, high quantity work from all devs.

Makes me wonder if BluRay will benefit PS3 in a big way by enabling more content, as the difference between a good looking game and mediocre looking game might well just come down to how many textures they've got? But then, who the hell can afford to fill even 2 DVDs worth of data, let alone 25-50 GB? But then, who'd have thought first-gen games would be pushing storage so much already?

 

[pc999]

PS3 with Blue Ray is not problem, but XB should not be as well, once they can/will(?) use HDD as cache they probably could have everythingh compressed.

Like you, I really think that the problem will be art creation

 

[Shifty Geezer]

On a programming forum recently there was question of speed loading data, and many were ofthe opinion it's faster to load and decompress large files from HD then to store them uncompressed - decompression being faster than transfer rates. Maybe the gigabytes of textures is still only megabytes on DVD?

 

[AlNom]

Anyone know how big PGR2 is?

Are they using offset mapping or something The 1kx1k texture has a 3D view to it even though it's....

 

[seismologist]

so are we looking a before and after compression?

The first one looks much better.

 

[coldstorm]

so are we looking a before and after compression?

The first one looks much better.

:?

its real life top . ingame bottom

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The top one is the photo texture, the bottom screen is that texture mapped to geometry in-game.

 

[mckmas8808]

Wow is this a GTA clone or a racing game?

 

[one]

Well I want to gaze at it from the right side instead of the left in the bottom pic

 

[AlNom]

Wow is this a GTA clone or a racing game?

GTA has crappier textures than MSR.

 

[Acert93]

Hahaha

You can see where they are cheating Note the garage doors and see the car reflection in the windows (i.e. repeated door). Ditto the base concerete of the building, it is repeated/mirrored.

Looks like they are putting a bit of work into this. Would love to see this much detail in a FPS... with destructabile worlds

The question over 'is DVD enough for XB360' rears its head again.

The 360 DVD media holds ~8.5GB of data. They are talking about GB's of textures (which is a lot by any standard). Even if there was 3 or 4 GBs of textures for the game, I am sure the other half of the disc (even with music) will be enough for this game.

I think we all know that certain games will require more than 8.5GB if space.

The real question is what genres and how many developers will have the time, money, and gamedesign that requires such.

None of us knows. But, my guess, is very few. I base part of this guess on the fact that cutting edge/expensive PC games (HL2, Doom 3, etc) have been using HD resolutions for a long period of time, use a lot of textures, and had large development budgets, ended up with much less than 8.5GB of space. Even a "AAA" title like EA's BF2 shipped on 3 CDs.

The 360 also has a HDD. So theoretically a game that ships on 2 DVDs could have one DVD worth of content stored on the HDD.

If game size was the *only* issue (which of course it is not) I would argue going for a larger storage medium to prevent disk swapping in 1% of games would be too large of an expense.

Obviously that is not the only issue. MS chose a HDD and Sony a HD optical drive. Both have pluses and minuses.

Really this is one of the biggest differences between the platforms.

And how many games will afford this much work? Maybe it'll only be a handful of games with this much content?

1. Very few developers could afford to walk around a city, photographing thousands upon thousands of street fronts, create geometry for the cityscape, clean them up the textures and dice/crop them to fit the geometry, then add lighting/shadowing, bump mapping, etc...

Basically 1st party flashship titles and AAA 3rd party titles that are guaranteed to sell millions of copies.

2. Who knows in 3 or 4 years, but comparing what other companies are doing and looking at PGR3 it is shaping up like not many developers will have the time/money to do this type of stuff.

It is worth noting that Bizzare is probably not using the most effecient method for saving space. Saving time? Yes. Saving space? Probably not. Instead of a lot of artist created assets that can be mixed and matched it looks like they are taking the short cut of large art assets taken from the real world. Less space effecient, but easier than asking creating all the art and hand tweaking/creating an entire city. That takes imagination!

But in those cases, surely games with much less content will look very much inferior? PGR is gonna look great with all these high-detail textures. Any racer with much less artwork isn't gonna look as good. That's gonna push for high cost, high quantity work from all devs.

Yep. PGR3 looks like a next gen title while a lot of other titles look like tweeners.

I think we have all known for a while the difference next gen is going to come down to budget and artists.

The hardware by itself cannot bridge that gap. Simply, an inferior game is going to be an inferior game on either platform. That was true this gen: You had your GTs (Frozas, etc), and then you had everyone else.

This gen, that gap should be even bigger.

But then, who the hell can afford to fill even 2 DVDs worth of data, let alone 25-50 GB? But then, who'd have thought first-gen games would be pushing storage so much already?

Who can fill 2 DVDs? Sony, MS, Nintendo, EA... and maybe some of the top titles from other publishers (like a Ubi SC title, MGS from Capcom, Rockstar's GTA, SE with FF, Sega if they choose, etc).

I am not sure they are knocking on the 8.5GB limit quite yet, but surely some will. For those titles Sony will be sitting pretty and MS will have to either find another way (swapping CDs, HDD streaming) or do without.

But for the most part I think the issue is one of money, not size limitations. AAA titles "filling the space" is to be expected. But that noted, N64 developers found ways to make good use of smaller ROMs. In game cut scenes instead of FMV, smarter use of textures, etc.

In some ways there are similarities in that you have a DVD+HDD vs. a HD Optical drive. The difference being, of course, that instead of a 100:1 size difference we are looking at a 6:1 size difference (not counting multiple DVDs or the HDD space). And on Sony's side they can add a HDD (which has issues as this gen showed, but that is besides the point).

These companies just don't take as many risks these days

 

[_leech_]

...MGS from Capcom...

The Metal Gear series is from Konami

 

[Qroach]

Where are you guys getting this idea of caching files off the hard drive from? From what i understand that wa functionality available in teh first xbox that was almost never used. I don't think you can do that at all with the way the current hard drive is setup. The hardrive in 360 is essentually a big memory card.

 

[_leech_]

Where are you guys getting this idea of caching files off the hard drive from? From what i understand that wa functionality available in teh first xbox that was almost never used. I don't think you can do that at all with the way the current hard drive is setup. The hardrive in 360 is essentually a big memory card.

Good point. While every X360 will come with a HDD, developers can't count on it being attached at all times.

 

[scooby_dooby]

but dev's must have the option of not allowing gameplay without one.

otherwise how would huxley, spore, or oblivion work?

i really think MS made a dumb move by hyping the HD to b removable...who wants to remove their HD anyways? if you wanted to be portablethat's what memory dards were for...i dunno what they're thinking, kinda nueters the in-game advantages of having a HD.

 

[Fafalada]

i dunno what they're thinking, kinda nueters the in-game advantages of having a HD.

It gives them the option of selling a HDD-less SKU eventually (there's lots of people that don't care or even want one, but would like a cheaper price), and of course offer HDD upgrades to people that want them.

 

[mckmas8808]

but dev's must have the option of not allowing gameplay without one.

otherwise how would huxley, spore, or oblivion work?

i really think MS made a dumb move by hyping the HD to b removable...who wants to remove their HD anyways? if you wanted to be portablethat's what memory dards were for...i dunno what they're thinking, kinda nueters the in-game advantages of having a HD.

Wow I never realized that. I guess thats why MS told all devs not to expect the HDD to be there. Ok I'm starting to understand now.

I base part of this guess on the fact that cutting edge/expensive PC games (HL2, Doom 3, etc) have been using HD resolutions for a long period of time, use a lot of textures, and had large development budgets, ended up with much less than 8.5GB of space. Even a "AAA" title like EA's BF2 shipped on 3 CDs.

I didn't think you could compare the structure of a PC game to a console game. Not a good comparision.

Very few developers could afford to walk around a city, photographing thousands upon thousands of street fronts, create geometry for the cityscape, clean them up the textures and dice/crop them to fit the geometry, then add lighting/shadowing, bump mapping, etc...

Basically 1st party flashship titles and AAA 3rd party titles that are guaranteed to sell millions of copies.

Well thats what you need to lead in this console war. Great 1st party flagship titles and AAA 3rd party titles. I see your point but it really doesn't mean anything.

Yep. PGR3 looks like a next gen title while a lot of other titles look like tweeners.

Well the problem is we don't know what the others have now. Compare what Bizarre showed at E3 to what they have now and you can see there's a clear difference. The others have probably updated the look of their games too.