Regarding Insomniac's PS3 engine...

[Kittonwy]

There were some huge open areas on R&C: TODF. The dinosaur world for example was massive. Not to mention they said in their podcast a few months back that every game to come will be 60fps from R&C on.

Yes but Resistance 2 isn't R&CFTOD, the lighting in R&CFTOD isn't exactly its strong suit, Resistance 2 requires more sophisticated lighting/shadowing. It's not just about pushing polygons anymore, you need big environments that are also pretty and impressively lighted/shadowed, and lighting/shadowing in Resistance 2's case should NOT be sacrificed for trying to hit 60fps when a rock-solid 30fps works fantastically well. Resistance 1's main deficiency had always been the lighting/shadowing, NOT the lack of 1080p/60fps which are basically a couple of bullet points to put on the back of the box.

 

[JPT]

Resistance 1's main deficiency had always been the lighting/shadowing, NOT the lack of 1080p/60fps which are basically a couple of bullet points to put on the back of the box.

I do belive opinions are divided on that issue, some prefer 60fps above anything else and others go gaga for shadows and polygons, its all to each ones taste I guess.

 

[DJ12]

You have to realise that when they made the annoucement that every game after R&C would be 60fps, they probably had a pretty advanced version of Resistance 2 already up and running.

 

[archangelmorph]

You have to realise that when they made the annoucement that every game after R&C would be 60fps, they probably had a pretty advanced version of Resistance 2 already up and running.

I'd have to agree..

I also believe IMO that R1's greatest difficiency was by in respect to the polygonal & shader detail in the characters.. GeOW didn't have a particularly great lighting/shadowing at all either however the modelling was top notch & allowed objects in the world to look alot less "flat" & alot more detailed than those of R1..

 

[Crossbar]

Regarding Insomniac and 1080p, here are some comments of Ted Price from the time of the launch of Resistance1.

720p versus 1080p

We’ve gotten a few questions about whether Resistance will be running in 1080p or 720p. In fact, AssassinX01 brought this up in his comments on my last blog.

Over the past few months we've told all of the enthusiast magazines and websites that we will TRY for 1080p. And indeed we did try. But when we began making our final discs we made the decision to release at 720p. Why? Native 1080p (versus 720p scaled to 1080p) uses much more VRAM than 720p. When we finished up a few of our bigger levels at the very end of the development process we realized that we would have had to steal VRAM from some of our characters and environments to run in native 1080p. Some of you who aren’t familiar with hardware in general may be asking “So didn’t you say you freed up more space?” Well yes, but VRAM and disc space are two completely separate things. VRAM/RAM is the 512Mb of dynamic memory allocated to game assets at runtime versus the 25Gb or so of permanent storage on a single-layer Blu-Ray.

Anyway, we felt it was best to stay at 720p and that, at least while 1080p televisions are still relatively scarce, we should focus on implementing 1080p for our future games. Keep in mind too that Resistance still looks great on 1080p TVs even though it’s running in 720p. All 1080P TVs have a hardware scaling mechanism which scales the input signal to the TV’s native resolution. In fact, much of the non direct-feed (i.e. handheld cam) footage of Resistance floating around on the net has been of 1080p TVs using Resistance’s 720p signal.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the game also looks really good on standard NTSC (480i) TVs. I think it’s easy to ignore the fact that not every consumer owns an HD TV. But we made sure to thoroughly test Resistance for text legibility and overall contrast on different types of NTSC sets.

As far as the 1080p question goes, we at Insomniac realize that naysayers will have a field day with this one. Yet keep in mind that developing a launch title is a fluid process – things change all of the time. That’s what makes this kind of “on the edge” development both fun and terrifying. Ultimately what matters though is that you end up with a game that looks, sounds and plays great. And for Resistance: Fall of Man, I believe we’ve succeeded.

 

[AlNom]

That's going to be quite a trade-off of sorts to make enough room in memory (different level design + streaming); 1080p is 4.5x the total framebuffer (front and back buffers) compared to 720p.

(Of course, ignoring the other issues of going to 1080p)

 

[Arwin]

That's going to be quite a trade-off of sorts to make enough room in memory (different level design + streaming); 1080p is 4.5x the total framebuffer (front and back buffers) compared to 720p.

(Of course, ignoring the other issues of going to 1080p)

That's what they said when they announced they weren't going to do it for Resistance 1, although they initially aimed to. They had to make sacrifices in later levels because they ran out of memory.

Since they go for 60hz and all those other upgrades, I'm fairly sure they won't go for 1080p this time either. Perhaps they'll have an additional rendering mode that looks better in 1080p, like 1280x1080p, but other than that ... Nah.

 

[Crossbar]

Someone should be assigned to go to this session at GDC and write a report.

Insomniac's SPU Programming Practices
Speaker: Mike Acton (Engine Director, Insomniac Games)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: Programming
Experience Level: Advanced

Session Description
Insomniac is now on its third generation PlayStation 3 game and technology. Mike Acton, engine director, and Eric Christensen, principal engine programmer, will describe in detail the state of Insomniac's proprietary engine from RESISTANCE: FALL OF MAN and RATCHET AND CLANK FUTURE: TOOLS OF DESTRUCTION to our current project. This talk will describe the steps taken to understand the SPU, fit more code and data on the SPU, and the steady progression toward a state where the SPUs dominate our game update. Developing an engine from the ground up on any platform is a difficult task. This talk will cover what went wrong, what went right, and what steps are being taken to continue in a direction that we keep Insomniac on the competitive edge and prepare the studio for future platforms. This presentation will include concrete examples of some of key systems and how they've been improved over time. Step by step code examples will be used to answer common questions related to SPU programming methods, including Insomniac's techniques for breaking the 256k barrier. Details on Insomniac's use of "SPU Shaders" and the benefits of that system will also be covered.

Unless Mr Acton swiftly will bless us with the slides.

 

[Arwin]

Ah, that should be a very interesting presentation ... few companies are as open as they are AND have lots of interesting stuff to say.

 

[Gitaroo]

some new screen shots for resistance 2, not scan


http://img352.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots7dj6.jpg

http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots5ph1.jpg

http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots6cv9.jpg

http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots4mk0.jpg

http://img352.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots2hf8.jpg

http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots1jp1.jpg

 

[Neb]

Looks nice ignoring the BS stamp across them that strongly reminds me of Halo 3 photomode! ^^

 

[JPT]

What struck me was that Insomniac said in their podcast that it was showing in game assets, which I assume to mean stuff that are in the game, but not necessarily actual gameplay screen shoots ie movie sequences etc.

In some other interview they said that the R&C models that was used on the R&C tv commercial, where the same as the ones used in the game with just better shading/lighting added for the none gameplay part of the commercial.
So it could same sort of thing again, ie stuff that have been touched up a bit.

But if it isn't, then I am gob smacked And I do hope it's "real".

 

[Gitaroo]

well they probably touch up the resolution and the jaggies, or rendered the game in 1080p res on pc. I think in their new podcast, they said there are only focusing on the gameplay atm and haven't really put all their effort on their graphics to pretty the game up. I think if you scale down the AA a bit and resolution to 720p, it looks believable to me.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Looks like a mix of real-time rendering in the foreground and concept art in the background, at least for the outdoor shots. If that's all in-game assets then kudos to them on the DOF effect. Nonetheless it looks fantastic. I hope the final product looks something close to that.

 

[Entropy]

Looks like a mix of real-time rendering in the foreground and concept art in the background, at least for the outdoor shots. If that's all in-game assets then kudos to them on the DOF effect. Nonetheless it looks fantastic. I hope the final product looks something close to that.

DOF effect?
The fading of background elements looks nothing at all like optical DOF.
Good thing too, why on earth shouldn't I be able to focus where I want in an interactive game? Have my character undergone surgery for cataracts, or what the hell is going on?

 

[Arwin]

some new screen shots for resistance 2, not scan
http://img352.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots7dj6.jpg
http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots5ph1.jpg
http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots6cv9.jpg
http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots4mk0.jpg
http://img352.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots2hf8.jpg
http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hiresscreenshots1jp1.jpg

From the Resistance 2 thread, here are 1920x1080p versions of these shots:

http://gallery.greedykidz.net/get/365477/HiResScreenShots1.jpg?g2_serialNumber=1
http://gallery.greedykidz.net/get/365479/HiResScreenShots2.jpg?g2_serialNumber=1
http://gallery.greedykidz.net/get/365481/HiResScreenShots3.jpg?g2_serialNumber=1
http://gallery.greedykidz.net/get/365483/HiResScreenShots4.jpg?g2_serialNumber=1
http://gallery.greedykidz.net/get/365485/HiResScreenShots5.jpg?g2_serialNumber=1
http://gallery.greedykidz.net/get/365487/HiResScreenShots6.jpg?g2_serialNumber=1
http://gallery.greedykidz.net/get/365489/HiResScreenShots7.jpg?g2_serialNumber=1

 

[Kittonwy]

Looks like a mix of real-time rendering in the foreground and concept art in the background, at least for the outdoor shots. If that's all in-game assets then kudos to them on the DOF effect. Nonetheless it looks fantastic. I hope the final product looks something close to that.

There's no funny business with those screenshots according to jstevenson, those levels are the same ones he said he was playing at his desk.

 

[Kittonwy]

Someone should be assigned to go to this session at GDC and write a report.



Unless Mr Acton swiftly will bless us with the slides.

Hopefully Mr. Action's presentation will answer some of my questions. At this point having played the first game I know the gameplay and physics should be pretty good, visuals has been my main gripe with the series but obviously Resistance was a launch game, the screenshots look amazing though.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Looks like a mix of real-time rendering in the foreground and concept art in the background, at least for the outdoor shots

It'd be a waste of resources to model those mountains if the player can't get any closer to them. Static backdrops are a smart choice for many a game, even if it's just a sky box. As for the game looking close to that, have Insomniac ever misled in that respect? The original RFoM images were true to the final game, were they not?

 

[Arwin]

You can easily compare the backgrounds in these Resistance 2 shots to the backgrounds in Ratchet & Clank: Future, both using the same technique.