Evil_Cloud
Veteran
OCII engine = Himalaya engine
Too bad appeal closed down, it was a talented developer
Too bad appeal closed down, it was a talented developer
Sony Halo, KILLzone hype thread!
- Thread starter chaphack
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Yep, before Appeal closed its doors, OCII was one of my most anticipated games for PS2.Evil_Cloud said:OCII engine = Himalaya engine
Too bad appeal closed down, it was a talented developer
Wasn´t there some rumor after cancellation of OCII, that Atari (Infogrames) wanted to create a game using the Himalaya engine?
marconelly!
Veteran
KZ was in development loooong before Appeal closed. There are rumors some people went to Lost Boys though (although most of them went to form a new company - Playlogic)
marconelly!
Veteran
Wow, that water demo looks mighty fine. Are there any videos of it?
Evil_Cloud
Veteran
Gandalf said:I know.marconelly! said:
The idea rushed into my mind, when i heard that some former Appeal employees may have joined Lost Boys, helping them with their know-how.
...I want to see real Pics.... NOW.
I've got some contacs with the editors of an official PlayStation magazine (I know them personally) When I asked them about Kill Zone they were not allowed to speak about it. So I guess that we'll see screens in about 1 to 2 weeks
I'll be disappointed if it looks just 'as good as Halo' but runs 60fps.
Halo is not a very good looking game, IMO.
Halo is not a very good looking game, IMO.
NURBS is a big caveat... A NURBS surface has to be rectangular, and the control vertices are always layed out in a grid. Thus, building complex shapes from them is hard as you cannot create branching structures from one surface; and modeling organic detail with a grid-structure isn't easy either. You can build a ground plane easily, but even a simple shirt is problematic because of the sleeves not to mention the nose and the eyes on a human face.
There are two main methods to create complex surfaces from NURBS:
One is to use "trimming", drawing a curve on a surface, and making the part on one of its sides invisible. You can then use this curve to generate a "blend" surface to connect to a second NURBS surface and so on. I'd rather not get into details, it's quite complicated.
The other method is to use many small patches stitched together at the edges. This is an art in itself, designing patch networks for different models and building them - and we're not talking about the scuplting of shapes, it's still just the technical background.
The problem is that the stitching isn't static, it's basically the program trying to hold seperate pieces of the object together. So you could guess where the problem comes in: when you try to deform the surface, which is a must for skinning characters. Tiny cracks can appear between patches, and the problem is magnified with displacement mapping.
CAD users still prefer NURBS for their infinite smoothness and mathematical background. Then again, cars and other industrial stuff are static.
Movie studios have been using patches since Terminator 2 and had problems with them all the time. When all else fails, the cracks between patches are painted out frame by frame. This is still happening with movies like LOTR and such, after more than 10 years of research in NURBS patches!
Subdivision surfaces are indeed the future for organic stuff. The layout of the vertices is arbitrary, which is preferred for characters; and there has to be only one continuous surface thus cracks are avoided too. Also, the arbitrary topology usually results in less vertices and thus smaller datasets then NURBS; and it's a lot less calculation heavy as there's no tangency and surface continuity to compute for each frame. Most movie effects houses are already transitioning, with Weta and Gollum as a prime example.
I see no reason for realtime graphics to mess with NURBS for organics; they can just as well skip this step. The Nvidia Dawn and Ogre demos are using subdivs already, so it's most likely going to be the industry standard.
There are two main methods to create complex surfaces from NURBS:
One is to use "trimming", drawing a curve on a surface, and making the part on one of its sides invisible. You can then use this curve to generate a "blend" surface to connect to a second NURBS surface and so on. I'd rather not get into details, it's quite complicated.
The other method is to use many small patches stitched together at the edges. This is an art in itself, designing patch networks for different models and building them - and we're not talking about the scuplting of shapes, it's still just the technical background.
The problem is that the stitching isn't static, it's basically the program trying to hold seperate pieces of the object together. So you could guess where the problem comes in: when you try to deform the surface, which is a must for skinning characters. Tiny cracks can appear between patches, and the problem is magnified with displacement mapping.
CAD users still prefer NURBS for their infinite smoothness and mathematical background. Then again, cars and other industrial stuff are static.
Movie studios have been using patches since Terminator 2 and had problems with them all the time. When all else fails, the cracks between patches are painted out frame by frame. This is still happening with movies like LOTR and such, after more than 10 years of research in NURBS patches!
Subdivision surfaces are indeed the future for organic stuff. The layout of the vertices is arbitrary, which is preferred for characters; and there has to be only one continuous surface thus cracks are avoided too. Also, the arbitrary topology usually results in less vertices and thus smaller datasets then NURBS; and it's a lot less calculation heavy as there's no tangency and surface continuity to compute for each frame. Most movie effects houses are already transitioning, with Weta and Gollum as a prime example.
I see no reason for realtime graphics to mess with NURBS for organics; they can just as well skip this step. The Nvidia Dawn and Ogre demos are using subdivs already, so it's most likely going to be the industry standard.
Laa-Yosh, excellent post as usual. I think NURBS are turning into a catch-all phrase for any form of HOS, thus I doubt (as your post well articulates the reasons for) that their utilizing NURBS per-say.
OT: Are you familiar with Catmull-Clark Surfaces? What's the difference between them and a normal B-Spline? I'm guessing it would be concerning the vertex placement? Read an article that briefly talked about them awhile ago and never found out exactly.
OT: Are you familiar with Catmull-Clark Surfaces? What's the difference between them and a normal B-Spline? I'm guessing it would be concerning the vertex placement? Read an article that briefly talked about them awhile ago and never found out exactly.
The new UK OPSM2 mag has nothing on KillZone, even though last issue it was advertised that there would be a big story of this 'most amazing game ever'.
But they do have tits again, and pointing to 'continental size pacchetto'
But they do have tits again, and pointing to 'continental size pacchetto'
