Sony's PSSG Project - Interview with SCE R&D manager Jason Doig

[Carl B]

We've heard of PSSG before through it's inclusion in conference schedules from Devstation and Develop, but it's something whose specifics have until now remained in the realm of Sony's secretive developer circles. Well, here's the man behind the project, and I hope it will prove enlightening on the matter.

It's clear Sony is definitely making an effort in the tools arena, and there are some good SPE functionality specifics in there. Note also of course - for those that haven't been following - that PSSG is what forms the code base from which Codemasters' recent Neon engine was built, so I think this should appeal to a wider audience than just the hardcore technophiles as well.

http://psinext.e-mpire.com/index.php?categoryid=3&m_articles_articleid=722

 

[rounin]

As usual, nice work Thanks for the effort. I'll read this over dinner.

 

[PeterT]

Interesting article. I believe the point on the second page regarding the similarity of shader and SPUcode is a very important one. It shows that even PC devs used to optimizing shaders have some sort of experience with a similar execution environment. Of course this is particularly relevant for those who have done some kind of GPGPU work before, as many of the good practices in that area should translate well to SPU programming. (Of course the spus are quite a bit more general than pixel shaders)

PSSG sounds from its goals a lot like Ogre, that is, an engine focused on rendering that also plays nicely with other libraries for stuff like physics and sound, and can be used as a building block for a complete game engine. Personally I like such a modular approach, it's quite Unixy

 

[Carl B]

Interesting article. I believe the point on the second page regarding the similarity of shader and SPUcode is a very important one. It shows that even PC devs used to optimizing shaders have some sort of experience with a similar execution environment. Of course this is particularly relevant for those who have done some kind of GPGPU work before, as many of the good practices in that area should translate well to SPU programming. (Of course the spus are quite a bit more general than pixel shaders)

Agreed, and I'm glad I had the experience of the Mike Acton interview behind me in order to think to bring it up. He's really the one that deserves the credit in that regard...

For me I think the most powerful realization in this was that Sony is taking the whole development tools 'thing' seriously, and they know that SPE utilization - for the majority of devs - will be the wall they need to get past to reach a performing game. Where IBM has been handling the compiler end of things, here Sony is providing real-world libraries to help developers get a start on their engines; and really, due to the approach taken with it, it even has applicability in multi-threaded environments outside of Cell.

It's a cool project, and I love how they had the 'geometry shading' lingo in play before it got co-opted elsewhere!

 

[Gradthrawn]

I love how candid and honest these interviews have been. In this interview in particular, Mr Doig isn't making PSSG out to be some super "extreme to the max" solution thats saving the world and will "push the PS3 to its limits." He's honest and upfront about what it is, isn't, and would like to be. Would it be to much to say that it is, *gasp* PR free?! Great job, again.

If possible, and you get a chance to a do a few follow up questions, please drill him a little more on SCE's homebrew scene. I noticed you slipped in a question about bring PSSG to a “wider audience” *coughYDLuserscough*at the end there. I'm happy to hear that they've at least discussed it, even if there are no immediate plans.

 

[Arwin]

Thank you very much, again! Top notch interview again, asking the questions we want to have asked. Kudos!

 

[scificube]

Interesting article. I believe the point on the second page regarding the similarity of shader and SPUcode is a very important one. It shows that even PC devs used to optimizing shaders have some sort of experience with a similar execution environment. Of course this is particularly relevant for those who have done some kind of GPGPU work before, as many of the good practices in that area should translate well to SPU programming. (Of course the spus are quite a bit more general than pixel shaders)

PSSG sounds from its goals a lot like Ogre, that is, an engine focused on rendering that also plays nicely with other libraries for stuff like physics and sound, and can be used as a building block for a complete game engine. Personally I like such a modular approach, it's quite Unixy

I have to agree that it sound quite a bit like Ogre3D to me too. They seem to focus on building pluggable solutions which are modular so that like with Ogre3D you can use their rendering engine and write your own physics, sound etc if you like (or use pre-existing solutions). I hope they continue with this modular design philosophy in including sound, physics, AI, animation, etc such that there is greater opportunity to find solutions one can use without having to pick up unwanted baggage. I do wonder how well modules would work together if they were designed to stand alone...unless specifically taken into account opportunities for the modules to better work together could be missed.

I suppose the greater misfortune would be developers not actually taking advantage of these efforts if in the first place if for nothing else but to gain knowledge.

edit:

Oh how could I forget...yet another well delivered high quality piece. Keep up the good work!

 

[Carl B]

If possible, and you get a chance to a do a few follow up questions, please drill him a little more on SCE's homebrew scene. I noticed you slipped in a question about bring PSSG to a “wider audience” *coughYDLuserscough*at the end there. I'm happy to hear that they've at least discussed it, even if there are no immediate plans.

Let's just say, I got an answer to the question that would receive one.

I actually have Jason to thank for that; I asked the homebrew question and he told me he wouldn't be able to speak to it. But where I would have been ready to move on, he offered up this alternative that still addressed the spirit of my original line of reasoning.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

PSSG for homebrew would be AWESOME! Seriously cool, if they can take the burden of the graphics engine away from creative developers and yet leave hardcore coders to do their own thing. It'd just need someone to rework a physics engine like ODE, and someone to offer an audio library, and the toolkit would be there.

Whie reding this I was thinking of DeanA. He's in the RnD department, no? I guess we can safely say he's not working on graphics engine tech. Is there any info he could give on some developments, or at least areas of development, being worked on? There seems to be a lot of development going on at Sony that we're not aware of but which is really useful and a wide reaching. It'd be nice to hear some more positives, seeing as Sony are trying to get past the legacy of PS2's SDK and are currently branded as hopeless in the realm of software tools.

 

[MrWibble]

Whie reding this I was thinking of DeanA. He's in the RnD department, no?

Actually I thought he worked for one of the games studios, but I could be wrong.

 

[DeanA]

Actually I thought he worked for one of the games studios, but I could be wrong.

Nope.. you're not wrong.

 

[mckmas8808]

Nope.. you're not wrong.

Ahhh man which one? Doing what game? I need to know.

 

[London Geezer]

DeanA is in Cambridge and i seem to remember he works for Sony's Studio Cambridge... Very original name by the way...

 

[DeanA]

Ahhh man which one? Doing what game? I need to know.

As l-b says, I primarily work in the SCEE Cambridge offices. I'm sure I've said before but I don't work directly on titles, instead I work in a group (ATG) that creates libraries for use in 1st and 2nd party games (not game engines). At this very moment, I'm working on our animation system.. well I would be, if I weren't on B3D while waiting for latest code to come down to my machine.

Cheers,
Dean

 

[mckmas8808]

As l-b says, I primarily work in the SCEE Cambridge offices. I'm sure I've said before but I don't work directly on titles, instead I work in a group (ATG) that creates libraries for use in 1st and 2nd party games (not game engines). At this very moment, I'm working on our animation system.. well I would be, if I weren't on B3D while waiting for latest code to come down to my machine.

Cheers,
Dean

Man I want to know what game that animation system is for. I'm just going to guess that it's Heavenly Sword.

I can't wait to use that new animation system soon. Hopefully for a free download on launch day. Maaaaaybe?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

As l-b says, I primarily work in the SCEE Cambridge offices. I'm sure I've said before but I don't work directly on titles, instead I work in a group (ATG) that creates libraries for use in 1st and 2nd party games (not game engines). At this very moment, I'm working on our animation system.. well I would be, if I weren't on B3D while waiting for latest code to come down to my machine.

Okay. I knew you were on the tech side of things. Is your library destined to be part of a wider set of libraries for PS3's SDKs, or just confined to 1st and 2nd party? There's no chance of PSSG providing a graphics backbone and other systems from Sony becoming available for 3rd party devs to plug into?

(Or the real question, will homebrew get PSSG with DeanAmation? )

 

[London Geezer]

Man I want to know what game that animation system is for. I'm just going to guess that it's Heavenly Sword.

I can't wait to use that new animation system soon. Hopefully for a free download on launch day. Maaaaaybe?

Ninja Theory and Studio Cambridge are actually in the same building, if i remember correctly. Marco said something like that. Quite cool actually. Me on the other hand, I have Atari in my building. I think my IQ loses a few points every time i see their posters...

 

[DeanA]

Man I want to know what game that animation system is for. I'm just going to guess that it's Heavenly Sword.

Yeah, they are using it (along with other teams). As it happens, I worked on the the core of the earlier anim system when I was at 'Just Add Monsters' around 3 and a half years ago.. so there are some conceptual similarities.

Of course, back then we didn't have SPUs..

Dean

 

[NavNucST3]

Ninja Theory and Studio Cambridge are actually in the same building, if i remember correctly. Marco said something like that. Quite cool actually. Me on the other hand, I have Atari in my building. I think my IQ loses a few points every time i see their posters...

I know what you mean, the spirit of Atari is no more...sad really.

xbd, as usual, good read.

I'm pretty excited for GDC I would love to see the other platforms and what everyone is doing with them.

 

[Carl B]

I think there's a lot of confusion out there wrt to the compartmentalization of SCE's distinct divisions; I know I certainly asked for some fleshing out of that understanding when I was interviewing Jason!

One of the things to understand is that DeanA in the 'Worldwide Studios' section, and Jason Doig in SCEI R&D, are in two distinct divisions. DeanA's efforts and PSSG, though clearly sharing some overlap via animation systems, sort of target two different audiences, with Jason aiming primarily at third-parties that need to 'jump-start' their engine development (multi-platform or not) and understanding of the SPEs, and Dean part of (I'm guessing) the internal Worldwide Studios effort to build a cohesive library and knowledge base for first-party studios (and Ninja Theory ) to tap into.

So, if there was a toolset made available to the homebrewers, I think it would derive from the PSSG side of things moreso than the Phil Harrison side of things, but hey who knows?

(and by the way thanks for the nice words everyone; I'm fortunate in having the chance to speak to cool tech-oriented people rather than the usual PR mouthpieces)