"Taming The Dragon: Next-Generation Asset Creation for PS3" (Some Lair info)

[Guden Oden]

Factor 5 has a habit of exagerating thier claims. that's why i said I'd take it with a grain of salt.

I'd say it's more a case of you not actually believing their claims/sour grapes on your behalf. It's not as if anyone's caught F5 with any outright lies or anything.

Either it's: "I don't see F5 title X using as many polys/texture layers as they claim they are" = bad art on F5's behalf that don't show off the engine's capabilities,

OR: "I don't see F5 title X using as many polys/texture layers as they claim they are so I picked apart the code and they aren't!"

So, which one is it, Roachy? You keep hemming and hawing about F5 not being trustworthy, but you don't have any proof to back up your claims. Time to step up to the plate, or quit making your insinuations.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Oh, that's true!! The sculpture part (stop motion and miniatures and so on) of the movie industry is dieing a very painful death with the advent of CG. Maybe we can see a return and more importantly WORK for these guys in the videogame industry.

That's absolutely not true going by all the making-offs I've watched on DVDs. Models are still the prime source of most scenery effects. Most of the computer work done on films is compositing and touch-up work. SW:Episode 2 was a good example (though bad film!). A lot of the buildings in that, which I thought CGs, were actually models, and the actors were filmed blue-screened and composited into the model. I suggest you watch the making-offs for Lucas to see how much is conventional special-effects. He's right at the forefront of technology, really pushing a lot of developments, but he's still using the backroom boys with their carpentry and AirFix!

 

[scooby_dooby]

So, which one is it, Roachy? You keep hemming and hawing about F5 not being trustworthy, but you don't have any proof to back up your claims. Time to step up to the plate, or quit making your insinuations.

Maybe he's referring to Factor5's public statement about how wonderful MS's XNA platform was.

Then a few months later, their public statement about moving to PS3 because of it's superior power.

It kinda seems like they are PR mouthpieces for whichever company they are with at the time, be it MS or Sony.

 

[Guden Oden]

That has no bearing on the numbers they claim to have achieved in their software for various platforms.

You'll find more than one company has made more or less dubious comments and praise about different hardwares at different points in time (last discussed in that team ninja thread), without it neccessarily sparking any particular reactions in Quincy here. He's got it in for F5, that's pretty clear to see. This time his comment was in direct response to various technical performance claims, not related to XNA or whatever.

 

[flick556]

Maybe he's referring to Factor5's public statement about how wonderful MS's XNA platform was.

Then a few months later, their public statement about moving to PS3 because of it's superior power.

It kinda seems like they are PR mouthpieces for whichever company they are with at the time, be it MS or Sony.

If you don't think of xna as anything new but merly a term for all ms's software tools than yes thier great and have been for a long time.

Also no one seems to deny ps3 power mostly it's the ease of use.

Are these statements politically motivated yes , but no different then what other devs have been saying.

 

[therealskywolf]

Maybe he's referring to Factor5's public statement about how wonderful MS's XNA platform was.

Then a few months later, their public statement about moving to PS3 because of it's superior power.

It kinda seems like they are PR mouthpieces for whichever company they are with at the time, be it MS or Sony.

They also said Gamecube was more powerfull than the Xbox.

 

[one]

yes there might be current gen cars 22 x 20k models but do you honestly believe they have cities the size of a full size NY city? including a fully modelled to specific detail brooklynn bridge.

Why do you have to load an entire city? Also, if you look at Bizarre website with wireframes screenshots, it's apparent that city models are relatively low-poly with rich textures.

 

[scificube]

They also said Gamecube was more powerfull than the Xbox.

When did they say that? I recal them saying they could accomplish everthing that coudl be done on the Xbox with the GCN, but I am unaware of claims to the affect of overall technical superiority.

 

[one]

For referece, here's a cam movie of Lair at the PS Meeting and another slightly different version from TGS.

 

[therealskywolf]

When did they say that? I recal them saying they could accomplish everthing that coudl be done on the Xbox with the GCN, but I am unaware of claims to the affect of overall technical superiority.

When Xbox was still in early kits (using geforce 2) they said in an interview (Old mag man) that the GC was more powerfull than the Xbox.

Of course they were basically comparing the kits i guess, because later they changed their tune a bit, even if they were still talking PR bs for Nintendo, by saying the GC processor was more powerfull than the Xbox one, and saying there was nothing the gpu of Xbox could do that the GC couldn't.

Very obviouslly these things weren't true. Factor 5 is a very very PR-ish dev team.

 

[Bohdy]

Very obviouslly these things weren't true.

Weren't they? ;-)

 

[Bobbler]

Didn't F5 create one of the best looking GC games made?

That rogue squadron game? (never played it or seen it, so I have no idea really).

Seems strange to just ignore what they say based on things you may not have agreed with in the past... and looking back at the things they've said, none of them have been untrue really. The GC is arguably just as capable as Xbox, and until recently GC and Xbox games looked pretty similar (Xbox games started using normal maps/shaders heavily in the last year or so, while GC hasn't -- looking at games before that they didn't look all that different). Also, saying XNA/Xbox360 is a wonderful/best environment isn't necessarily contradictory to saying PS3 is the most powerful -- both can be true at the same time... Their opinions seem to be just as valid as any others if you ask me.

 

[seismologist]

yeah these guys are technical gurus. Lair will probably be the best looking game once it comes out.

 

[ihamoitc2005]

Take look at Rogue Squadron

When Xbox was still in early kits (using geforce 2) they said in an interview (Old mag man) that the GC was more powerfull than the Xbox.

Of course they were basically comparing the kits i guess, because later they changed their tune a bit, even if they were still talking PR bs for Nintendo, by saying the GC processor was more powerfull than the Xbox one, and saying there was nothing the gpu of Xbox could do that the GC couldn't.

Very obviouslly these things weren't true. Factor 5 is a very very PR-ish dev team.

They were correct in their statement my friend. There are many things the GameCube does better than xbox. Yes there are a few things the xbox can do more readily due to 4 programmable pixel shader pipes and higher fill-rate but Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike with extensive bump-mapping, multi-texturing, very good lighting and shadows, and very high polygon count at 60fps has overall performance that has not been matched on Xbox or PS2. At times it looks like CGI. F5 is very good developers and few who showed what GameCube really capable of.

http://www.nlgaming.com/games/1202/5.jpg

Sony must have paid much money to get F5 on their side and it is good investment since F5 will develop high-performance engine which can provide foundation for other developer teams due to Sonys new unified development environment.

 

[pixelbox]

They were correct in their statement my friend. There are many things the GameCube does better than xbox. Yes there are a few things the xbox can do more readily due to 4 programmable pixel shader pipes and higher fill-rate but Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike with extensive bump-mapping, multi-texturing, very good lighting and shadows, and very high polygon count at 60fps has overall performance that has not been matched on Xbox or PS2. At times it looks like CGI. F5 is very good developers and few who showed what GameCube really capable of.

http://www.nlgaming.com/games/1202/5.jpg

Sony must have paid much money to get F5 on their side and it is good investment since F5 will develop high-performance engine which can provide foundation for other developer teams due to Sonys new unified development environment.

Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike did not run at a constant 60fps. some levels ran at 30, some at 60 depending on intensity. LOD was used heavily on the ships and levels. the picture you have shows good detail in the foreground but quickly fades into a mip-mapped texture in the background. bump-mapping wasn't used for most textures. in other words it was used sparingly. gamecube runs 8 INSTRUCTIONS a texture. depending on bump-map, that could be anywhere from two to 6 instructions. then there's the fillrate you have to watch because of these textures.

 

[Qroach]

They were correct in their statement my friend. There are many things the GameCube does better than xbox. Yes there are a few things the xbox can do more readily...

This has been argued over and over again. You have it backwards. There are many things xbox can do that gamecube can't. There's really not much point in arguing this "again". We've been over this many times with many developers here saying the same thing.

 

[mckmas8808]

This has been argued over and over again. You have it backwards. There are many things xbox can do that gamecube can't. There's really not much point in arguing this "again". We've been over this many times with many developers here saying the same thing.

Yep have to go with Q on this one. Splinter Cell anyone?

 

[ihamoitc2005]

Nothing is perfect

Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike did not run at a constant 60fps. some levels ran at 30, some at 60 depending on intensity. LOD was used heavily on the ships and levels. the picture you have shows good detail in the foreground but quickly fades into a mip-mapped texture in the background. bump-mapping wasn't used for most textures. in other words it was used sparingly. gamecube runs 8 INSTRUCTIONS a texture. depending on bump-map, that could be anywhere from two to 6 instructions. then there's the fillrate you have to watch because of these textures.

As for frame-rate, you are right, at times frame-rate drops but very rare and much better than games that are mostly 30fps and then have slowdown from that. Even if it was only 30fps all the time, it is still amazing achievement, but in fact it is 60fps most of the time, twice as good.

All games will always use LOD in this gen and next gen. They seem to use some kind of tile based LOD for large objects and it works quite well compared to many other games which have very noticable pop-up despite much less detail.

I am not sure why you say bump-mapping was used sparingly because in many scenes it is as much or more than most games on other consoles.

As for fill-rate and textures, yes the GameCube has less single, dual, or no texture fill-rate but has superior fill-rate for very high multi-texture capabiltiy with up to 8 layers in one pass. It is simply not possible for both Xbox or PS2 to match extreme multi-texturing of GameCube. Plus there is very impressive polygon count, lighting and shadows.

What makes F5 gamecube games better than other console games is total package. Any one set of features would be impressive at 60fps, but to have all at same time with only occasional frame-rate slow-down (probably because of AI/control than graphics demands) shows that GameCube was far more powerful than many think and very rarely properly utilized.

 

[_phil_]

wow , again a derailling thread ,shame some people can't help their second nature to take over.
It's IGDA ,not some kiddy event or public e3 bable .It's a professional thing.What's the prob with 100-170k dragons ? if you plan to film them from near ,you need that data.Then you LOD them to 15 000 polys to display ten of them ,then 1500 polys if you want 100.
Big deal...
BTW ,it most probably pre-production R&D and graphic pipeline researches.So please ,drop the guns .

 

[ihamoitc2005]

Not good example.

Yep have to go with Q on this one. Splinter Cell anyone?

SplinterCell was very very poor port to both PS2 and GameCube. Document on Gamasutra explains just how poorly made PS2 port was and I have no doubt GameCube port was equally botched. No reason why Splinter Cell should not run at 60fps on both consoles with no degradation and maybe even upgrades. If you want to show game where xbox might have technical advantage you should point to Riddick or Doom3 which have extensive normal-mapping use. Programmable pixel-shaders and texture quality are xbox's strength.