Sony @ GDC: Phil Harrison's Keynote

[Shifty Geezer]

"The sky is equally impressive, with billowy clouds and a sense of freedom of movement. It's a fantastic feeling to look at the sunset, see the water below, and the puffy clouds as you combat what were dozens of enemies at once."

Oooo, you're getting my hopes up! The old E3 Warhawk pics had nothing of the sort for comparison.

 

[Titanio]

No, unfortunately not. There's just that small off-screen photo, but they were flying fairly low at the time, looking up toward the sky, which makes judgement of the "volume" of the clouds difficult (in addition to just the size of the photo )

*squints*

 

[mckmas8808]

No, unfortunately not. There's just that small off-screen photo, but they were flying fairly low at the time, looking up toward the sky, which makes judgement of the "volume" of the clouds difficult (in addition to just the size of the photo )

*squints*

Pic is not there.

Edited: Okay it's there now.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

It kind of sounds like seperate frame rendering on Cell and RSX with a final composition between the two? It could also be Cell doing some heavy lifting before passing results to a shader running on RSX, but the way he phrases things makes it sound more like the former IMO..

Well, to composite the clouds, you need depth info on the scene. It makes more sense to let RSX render the frame and then read the framebuffer and Zbuffer data in small blocks into the SPUs. There's probably some more optimizing involved though, as it'd need quite a few hundred megs of data per frame, especially with 4x AA (4 times the Z samples).

Then again, the cloud data only requires a depth input, and produces a color output, so if they let RSX to do the final blending, then they won't have to read the framebuffer into the SPUs, only the Z-buffer. So the SPUs could render into a texture, that RSX would simply read in from the XDR RAM and add on top of the framebuffer. Still, GDDR bandwith is probably scarce enough already, with 4x AA, so maybe they can do some trickery to minimize the Z-reads too...


Now, about the raytracing part, why can't they call it raymarching, cause AFAIK that's the proper name?

 

[wco81]

"True high definition"?

As in 1080p?

 

[EPe9686518]

No SCE executives said that, Seamus Blackley said it, though. But it was about another machine, not the PS2.

Now, can we stop the discussion about how evil and deceptive marketing practices are, please?

Because it really starting to not only get old, but it also does not belong on a forum targeted to grown ups. And usually adults tend to understand the principle of marketing and how each claims should be taken with a grain of salt.

I know, very well, that some people do never understand it, or never accept it, which is different. But discussing about it, in a technology forum, is pretty pointless.

Ohh thats right, SCE executives say things like PS3 is 4D and Alive, and other nice quotes like PS2 is capable of FF the movie level of graphics. That one crazy far off quote just happened not to be from Sony it self in regards to PS2, but there is a whole list of them that are just as bad that are fully about PS2.

I fully understand what marketing is and I fully understand how it works in this industry as I have been in it for quite some time and I have seen how these companies tend to do things.

Sony did nothing but deceive consumers and the media leading up to PS2's launch. You call it marketing, I call it out right lying to consumers, but in eather case we all talking about the same thing. You say there is no point to bring that fact up in this forum, but I coulden't think of a better time to bring it up than in this thread as it is quite relavent in regards to what we are talking about currentally.

I sat through a whole host of PS2 "game demos" at media events in the months leading up to the system hitting stores and have yet to see one game on the system come close to some of the demos showed. But more destrubing was the heavy editing done to the real games we saw running off of dev hardware, games like Tekken that where completely smooth with no jaggies anywhere and looked quite stunning. Then when we played the games for the first time on the retail hardware we were blown away as there were a whole host of problems visually that were covered up for our media showings. The games actually looked completely different from what we had been shown. You call that marketing too?

So yea, I would say this thread would be a good place to point out that with Sony you really have to wait till your playing the game your self to really judge how it looks. These demos might not have any tuch ups done to them, the games might actually look just like them, or even better. I am just pointing out that I my self do not trust the demos and I take them with a grain of salt. At E3 this year we will get a very good look at these games and hopefully they will look at least as good as what was shown at the GDC. All I am saying is with Sony more so than anyone else, what they show you is very rarely what you end up getting.


But hopefully they changed their ways and hopefully the games really do look good, it's going to be quite interesting to see how they look and play. In anycase, can't wait till E3.

 

[Kabbage]

*Sigh*

Good Lord :|

 

[EPe9686518]

I'd just like to point out that Rallisport Challenge 2 (best racer last gen) did the mud/dirt/snow/dust effects and vehicle damage (parts falling off realistically, including wheels [yes, you can stil drive with 3 wheels, but not well])on Xbox years ago...

While RSC 2 did these things on Xbox 1, they were not done in the same way. In that game, your car did leave marks in the sand, but these were just done with bump mapped textures and while they looked good, what the Motosport game is doing on PS3 is completely different.

From what I read my understanding is the car's wheels are physically changing the enviorment mesh when the cars drive over them. The dirt that gets kicked up on the cars actually drys and hardeds realisticly. This is completely different than what RSC 2 did. Basicly that game faked these effects with textures and such, this game on PS3 is appreantly really doing these effects based on physics and weight, which is basiclly how they happen in the real world.

So from a technically standpoint this is indeed very impressive. From a visual stand point I am not sure how much differently it will look compared to other meathods of doing this. According to some of the sites though it looks stunning. But I guess thats what everyone on here is still waiting to see, just how good it looks.

 

[Deepblue]

While RSC 2 did these things on Xbox 1, they were not done in the same way. In that game, your car did leave marks in the sand, but these were just done with bump mapped textures and while they looked good, what the Motosport game is doing on PS3 is completely different.

From what I read my understanding is the car's wheels are physically changing the enviorment mesh when the cars drive over them. The dirt that gets kicked up on the cars actually drys and hardeds realisticly. This is completely different than what RSC 2 did. Basicly that game faked these effects with textures and such, this game on PS3 is appreantly really doing these effects based on physics and weight, which is basiclly how they happen in the real world.

So from a technically standpoint this is indeed very impressive. From a visual stand point I am not sure how much differently it will look compared to other meathods of doing this. According to some of the sites though it looks stunning. But I guess thats what everyone on here is still waiting to see, just how good it looks.

Call me a pessimist, but I'll bet a lot of money that they are simple displacement maps, not "actually" warping the geometry.

 

[EPe9686518]

Call me a pessimist, but I'll bet a lot of money that they are simple displacement maps, not "actually" warping the geometry.

Yea I would assume thats how they are doing it too, but I am just going by what the detailed reports are saying. To me that would be the most logical way of doing it as I don't think there would be any gameplay improvements for doing it the other way nore would I expect there to be much of a visual differece. That extra processing power could be used on far more importan things IMO.

 

[trinibwoy]

Call me a pessimist, but I'll bet a lot of money that they are simple displacement maps, not "actually" warping the geometry.

Ummmm, the result of applying a displacement map is "actually" warping the geometry (for that frame).

 

[Avon_Implosion]

people, its not like any of this is hard to believe; judging from what we've seen and read about in reports, it doesn't seem like anything above and beyond what is possible at this moment.

what do you expect the PS3 games to look like? Even by a pessimistic standpoint, the PS3 can do what the 360 can do just as well, and we haven't really seen anything that surpasses the best-looking games on the 360..perhaps rival, but this is all arguable.

I say again, what the hell do you expect PS3 games to look like? Many have said that the PS3 is more powerful than the 360-albeit by a very small margin-but that still suggests that it is capable of delivering some very impressive stuff.

Furthermore, Sony-and analysts-have made it very clear that the PS3 is vital to Sony's future success as a company...its a key feature in helping Sony get out of this ditch they've been in for some time. As a result, I dont find it suprising that they're pushing it as far as they can..this is in regards to the standard HDD, Linux, PNP, and everything else that many find unlikely or too good to be true. Sony has alot riding on the PS3's success-Cell, Blu-ray...the company itself (you cant argue that if the PS3 is even a semi-disappointment, it will affect Sony as a whole-so im not suprised that they're rushing out of the gate with all barrels blazing.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Call me a pessimist, but I'll bet a lot of money that they are simple displacement maps, not "actually" warping the geometry.

The people who viewed the Demo have stated that the resulting divits in the ground actually effects the steering of the vehicle. Meaning when you create a path for yourself in the Mud someone whos behind you gets effected by the trails in the Mud...

 

[mckmas8808]

The people who viewed the Demo have stated that the resulting divits in the ground actually effects the steering of the vehicle. Meaning when you create a path for yourself in the Mud someone whos behind you gets effected by the trails in the Mud...

And that's what I call true gameplay phyics. I wish people like Joey D. and Xbot360 could read your comment.

 

[Diamond.G]

And that's what I call true gameplay phyics. I wish people like Joey D. and Xbot360 could read your comment.

It would be cool if the ruts get larger as more ppl follow your line...

 

[rabidrabbit]

It's nice to see "physics" are used in a game more creatively than just "bouncing barrles".
A deformable track in a racing game opens up a whole new gameplay element. I hope these next gen consoles with their advanced "physics" processing will enable similar new gameplay ideas in other genres too.

I'm sure the deformable track will be a feature many games will copy, just wait 'til E3 and see.. (any bets for xbox360 to have at least one game claiming a similar feature, and to have a release date before Motorstorm)

 

[Laa-Yosh]

And that's what I call true gameplay phyics. I wish people like Joey D. and Xbot360 could read your comment.

I think you should be thinking about your behaviour after E3 first, before criticizing anyone's habits...

 

[London Geezer]

It's nice to see "physics" are used in a game more creatively than just "bouncing barrles".
A deformable track in a racing game opens up a whole new gameplay element. I hope these next gen consoles with their advanced "physics" processing will enable similar new gameplay ideas in other genres too.

I'm sure the deformable track will be a feature many games will copy, just wait 'til E3 and see.. (any bets for xbox360 to have at least one game claiming a similar feature, and to have a release date before Motorstorm)

Uhm kinda like.... Waverace? The one made centuries ago? And the loads of clones it spawned?
By the same standards, Waverace was also a racing game where the track constantly changed, affecting the gameplay, and it surely changed a lot more unpredictably than simple mud.
Surely it didn't look anywhere near what Motorstorm will look like, and the physics will be many times more complicated, as it should really, given the superiority of the hardware, but let's not fool ourselves and believe Motorstorm is really doing that's never been done or thought about before.
The principle is the same: the condition of the track affecting the handling of the vehicle. Waverace had water, Motorstorm has mud.
Having said that, i can't wait to see this baby.

 

[rabidrabbit]

oh sucks... (he does, really )

 

[Titanio]

Uhm kinda like.... Waverace? The one made centuries ago? And the loads of clones it spawned?
By the same standards, Waverace was also a racing game where the track constantly changed, affecting the gameplay, and it surely changed a lot more unpredictably than simple mud.

Your racer in Waverace did not spawn and create waves in its wake, etc. that affected other players, you didn't affect the environment..you couldn't splash up waves over other players etc.(though I don't know even if it did if that would be the "same thing" as what's being done in Motorstorm, same concept of player affecting the environment, but not sure if it'd be technically as demanding/sophisticated).