Questions about PS2

[Liandry]

Good day! I have some questions. Maybe i should post them on another thread, but maybe they ok here. Quesions are about Playstation 2.
1) Did PS2 support Normal Maping or Bump Mapping, or something like those effects? If yes, can anyone tell in which games?
2) Did PS2 support Stencil Shadows?
3) Is Ray Tracing possible on PS2?
4) Many effects on PS2 looks like they are shader based, but PS2 don't suppert shaders, so how they are made?
Thank you.

 

[sebbbi]

Good day! I have some questions. Maybe i should post them on another thread, but maybe they ok here. Quesions are about Playstation 2.
1) Did PS2 support Normal Maping or Bump Mapping, or something like those effects? If yes, can anyone tell in which games?
2) Did PS2 support Stencil Shadows?
3) Is Ray Tracing possible on PS2?
4) Many effects on PS2 looks like they are shader based, but PS2 don't suppert shaders, so how they are made?
Thank you.

PS2 didn't support normal mapping or pixel shaders. However PS2 GPU had a very fast (but small) on-chip EDRAM memory. It was common to multipass (read+modify+write) repeatedly to the EDRAM to achieve more complex effects that couldn't be achieved in a single pass (by the fixed function pixel pipeline). PS2 also had programmable vector processing pipelines that could be used for similar purposes than programmable vertex shaders.

Ray tracing is possible on every CPU, but it is still too slow for real games. Some GPU based raytracing techniques are fast enough on current gen (PS4) hardware. Screen space local reflection algorithms (SSLR) for example ray trace a depth pyramid to produce real time reflections. Distance field ray tracing is also starting to become common.

 

[Zane]

Good day! I have some questions. Maybe i should post them on another thread, but maybe they ok here. Quesions are about Playstation 2.
1) Did PS2 support Normal Maping or Bump Mapping, or something like those effects? If yes, can anyone tell in which games?
2) Did PS2 support Stencil Shadows?
3) Is Ray Tracing possible on PS2?
4) Many effects on PS2 looks like they are shader based, but PS2 don't suppert shaders, so how they are made?
Thank you.

You could do stencil shadow volumes on a PS2 and Shadow of the Colossus did It for self-shadowing.

And the fur for the creatures in SoTC was done without shades.

You can read all about it here: http://selmiak.bplaced.net/games/ps2/index.php?game=sotc&page=makingof&lang=eng

 

[Liandry]

Thank you for answer! As I understand PS2 does most of shader like effects through multipass?
How about stencil shadows?
And one more question. Did there was some games on PS2 with many lightsources on screen?

 

[Liandry]

Thank you Zane. Great information.

 

[Liandry]

One more interesting thing I found in game King Kong. Even from start of game you can see that there is volumetric light. First game on PS2 where I've seen this effect. And before it I didn't even thougt that this is possible on PS2.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Like this?

It's a screenspace effect. PS2 was great at post-processed images and this sort of thing was right up its alley.

 

[Liandry]

Yes, exactly! I think this effect is similar to games like Borderlands 2 or Red Ded Redemption. Right? And is it actually volumetric light or not? Just very interesting.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's not calculated volumetrically. It just looks the same. From 1:29...

 

[Liandry]

Just curious, if God of War 3 would've been developed and released for PS2 would've it been even better than God Of War 2 in terms of graphics? Or God of War 2 is absolute maximum for PS2 or near it?

 

[Nesh]

Judging by the difference between GoW1 and GoW 2 I dont think there was enough room for improvement, unless they halved the framerate to push more details.

But in general it is impossible to know

 

[Liandry]

Yes, it's impossible to know, but in theory? Because there was some games in PS2 last years that look very great if not better than God of War 2. But this is just my opinion, I may be wrong. Games like Tomb Raider Underworld, Call of Duty World at War Final Fronts and Test Drive Unlimited. What do you think about their graphics?

 

[Gitaroo]

Hitman bloodmoney on ps2 had normal map support which is quite nice.

 

[Akumajou]

Just curious, if God of War 3 would've been developed and released for PS2 would've it been even better than God Of War 2 in terms of graphics? Or God of War 2 is absolute maximum for PS2 or near it?

Probably not...it may have been a slight better visuals wise over God of War II but it would not have the same impact.

PS2 was an amazing hardware design with amazing software development but you'd be scratching the limitations.

Note I'm referring to your implied theory of GoW III being made on PS2...there were technical presentation interviews on GoW III were the devs spoke of the difference between hardware.

I often wondered a similar theory of had GoW I and II been remake-remastered on PS3 using all the experience from both GoW III and GoW Ascension plus applying more like full required install (to use the full bandwidth instead of the Blu Ray drive) that opens far more questions though.

 

[Liandry]

Gitaroo Interesting info. Thank you. I will take a look. What do you think about Matrix Path of Neo, in some places there also may be normal mapping and also in Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance.

Akumajou Also thank you for answer. Good answer and theory about GoW I and II on PS3.

 

[Gitaroo]

Gitaroo Interesting info. Thank you. I will take a look. What do you think about Matrix Path of Neo, in some places there also may be normal mapping and also in Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance.

Akumajou Also thank you for answer. Good answer and theory about GoW I and II on PS3.

Path of neo is suppose to be the first ps2 game that ever use normal map, I don't find it impressive honestly. But hitman is stands out more, very limited use but you can tell right away when you see it. I don't think Baldur's Gate uses normal map, maybe some baked in bump map solution onto the texture. You can see the surface does react to light at all, more evident if you run the game on emu in high res. Champion of Norrath is even more impressive than Baldur's Gate and no normal map either.

Edit: found a video of matrix.

I actually don't remember the used this much, I always thought normal map was only applied neo's coat lol

 

[Liandry]

I don't think Baldur's Gate uses normal map, maybe some baked in bump map solution onto the texture. You can see the surface does react to light at all, more evident if you run the game on emu in high res.

You mean light doesn't react to light, right?

Champion of Norrath is even more impressive than Baldur's Gate and no normal map either.

Champions of Norrath also use normal mapping or it's something different. And if you remember Baldur's Gate has great 3D water effects!

Edit: I actually don't remember the used this much, I always thought normal map was only applied neo's coat lol

I saw this video. Realy great! But how all those games use normal mapping, because PS2 doesn't support it? Or it support them?

 

[Grall]

Hitman bloodmoney on ps2 had normal map support which is quite nice.

It doesn't have normal map support as such, because the hardware can't perform that kind of operations. It fakes the end result using pre-baked textures and multitexturing.

 

[Liandry]

It doesn't have normal map support as such, because the hardware can't perform that kind of operations. It fakes the end result using pre-baked textures and multitexturing.

Dou you thint same is with Matrix Path of Neo (link above) or other games?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Champions of Norrath also use normal mapping or it's something different.

That's been discussed before a long time ago on this board. IIRC one of the PS2 devs said it wasn't normal mapping. More likely just lots of geometry, because PS2 could. eg. the amazing water was all geometry, no normal maps. IIRC the place we saw 'normal maps' were the bumpy, shiny floors, and that's more fakeable as you have a static camera orientation so can make assumptions (ie. more bump mapping than normal).