Were shaders just too system intensive for the PS2 to be used often?

[Neb]

I think I speak for everyone when I say: what?

It is all a matter of cutting down stuff and lowering res and detail for normal maps/environment, much like playing Doom3 at lowest/low settings (upscaling for it as with some current gen games?)!

You see saying that it runs on PS2 doesn't mean it runs with xbox or PC graphics IQ detail unless it is said so and visual proof can be delivered!

 

[Mobius1aic]

I can't remember the name but there was a canceled Doom 3-like FPS that was for all 3 systems with full dynamic lighting, shading, and what not. It's somewhere in Gamespot's little search engine for each system and their respective games.

 

[fearsomepirate]

By the way, don't use "shaders" and "normal mapping" as identical terms. I realize you explained that's what you meant at the beginning of the thread, but the term "shader" is extremely generic and encompasses an enormous range of effects. Depending on the hardware, certain shader effects may be relatively infeasible, but there's a whole lot out there besides normal mapping. When people say about some game on a less powerful piece of hardware, "It's not the technology or effects that make this game look good; it's the art direction," they really have no clue what they're talking about. Most people really have no idea just how terrible a game with nothing other than textures and predefined vertex colors with gouraud shading looks (and for that matter, even gouraud shading with prelit vertices can be considered an "effect," as your other option is flat shading)

 

[Squeak]

By the way, don't use "shaders" and "normal mapping" as identical terms. I realize you explained that's what you meant at the beginning of the thread, but the term "shader" is extremely generic and encompasses an enormous range of effects. Depending on the hardware, certain shader effects may be relatively infeasible, but there's a whole lot out there besides normal mapping. When people say about some game on a less powerful piece of hardware, "It's not the technology or effects that make this game look good; it's the art direction," they really have no clue what they're talking about. Most people really have no idea just how terrible a game with nothing other than textures and predefined vertex colors with gouraud shading looks (and for that matter, even gouraud shading with prelit vertices can be considered an "effect," as your other option is flat shading)

You mean like 95% of all games ever made? Like say, Klonoa 2.
New technology is new tools, like if a painter gets a new paintbrush, gets more colours or learns a new technique.
Even a sketch done in pencil can be a masterpeice, if done with the right understanding of the medium.

Personally I think the reason very few games ever used any kind of bumpmapping on PS2, is because devs simply couldn't be bothered doing it. They didn't deem it worth their time manually having to finetune an effect that could just be summoned with an API call on other consoles or PCs.

It really wasn't that expensive doing normal mapping on PS2. All it took was one, two or four passes depending on the technique used (CLUT cycling or the multipass technique linked to, are just a few of the many options).

Compared with other multitexturing or fillrate intensive effects that was regularly used on PS2 in huge to great extent (like the mud in MGS 3, environment mapping in many games or fur in SotC).

 

[Mobius1aic]

By the way, don't use "shaders" and "normal mapping" as identical terms. I realize you explained that's what you meant at the beginning of the thread, but the term "shader" is extremely generic and encompasses an enormous range of effects. Depending on the hardware, certain shader effects may be relatively infeasible, but there's a whole lot out there besides normal mapping. When people say about some game on a less powerful piece of hardware, "It's not the technology or effects that make this game look good; it's the art direction," they really have no clue what they're talking about. Most people really have no idea just how terrible a game with nothing other than textures and predefined vertex colors with gouraud shading looks (and for that matter, even gouraud shading with prelit vertices can be considered an "effect," as your other option is flat shading)

I know. How I can I forget Parallax Maps, Parallax Occlusion, etc? If only those were feasible for the PS2 Normal maps were just my focus of the discussing, though I'm very surprised at the lack of bump mapping as well. At least we saw a decent amount of reflection shaders on the PS2, Gran Turismo 3/4 and MGS3 did a great job with them.

 

[fearsomepirate]

You mean like 95% of all games ever made? Like say, Klonoa 2.

Really? Klonoa 2 has no interpolated animation or skinning, no particle effects, no directional lights, no dynamic lights, no fog, no haze, no weather effects, no use of multiple passes for texture blends, no outlining, no flares, no coronas, and no other lighting effects of any kind? It's just predefined vertex colors? I think you need to look again.

Mobius, you should probably look at this definition of "shader" at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shader

A lot of the effects done on PS2 would fall under the "vertex shader" category.

 

[Squeak]

Really? Klonoa 2 has no interpolated animation or skinning, no particle effects, no directional lights, no dynamic lights, no fog, no haze, no weather effects, no use of multiple passes for texture blends, no outlining, no flares, no coronas, and no other lighting effects of any kind? It's just predefined vertex colors? I think you need to look again.

animation, skinning, particle effects and the outlining type used, are geometry effects not shading.
Directional lights and dynamic lights are implemented with gouraud (there might be a few reflection maps, but not any I can remember).
Fog, haze and coronas and flares are just screen overlays or billboard polys, no lighting is calculated per se.
And "multiple passes for texture blends"? Where?

When people say about some game on a less powerful piece of hardware, "It's not the technology or effects that make this game look good; it's the art direction," they really have no clue what they're talking about. Most people really have no idea just how terrible a game with nothing other than textures and predefined vertex colors with gouraud shading looks

Klonoa 2 proves you wrong.

 

[Mobius1aic]

Really? Klonoa 2 has no interpolated animation or skinning, no particle effects, no directional lights, no dynamic lights, no fog, no haze, no weather effects, no use of multiple passes for texture blends, no outlining, no flares, no coronas, and no other lighting effects of any kind? It's just predefined vertex colors? I think you need to look again.

Mobius, you should probably look at this definition of "shader" at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shader

A lot of the effects done on PS2 would fall under the "vertex shader" category.

Sorry I just have a habit of making shaders out to just referring to the pixel kind. Even games have "shader" quality settings that are specifically just for the pixel shaders.

 

[fearsomepirate]

animation, skinning, particle effects and the outlining type used, are geometry effects not shading.

Since when are geometry effects not "shading?" Modern "vertex shaders" are frequently used for animation and particles. No shading means no geometry effects, too.

Directional lights and dynamic lights are implemented with gouraud (there might be a few reflection maps, but not any I can remember).

Directional and dynamic lights require vertex colors to be calculated in real time. I said "predefined" vertex colors. "Predefined" means "not calculated in real-time."

Fog, haze

...are Z-effects. That's more than a predefined vertex color or single-textured polygon.

coronas and flares

...require more than just predefined vertex colors and simple texturing, as they're generally viewing angle dependent, and most flare effects in the PS2 generation involve some kind of blends as well.

I'll grant that Klonoa 2 looks pretty crappy, but there's still more going on than you're willing to admit.

You really don't grasp what "no effects" look like, do you? When you say, "no technology" and "no effects," what you actually mean is that you have a secret mental list of effects and technology that somehow don't count. I can't actually think of a single 3D game I've played since the mid 90's that had literally no technology-dependent effects whatsoever beyond predefined vertex lights and single-textured polygons. Heck, even Quake I had particles and light maps. Quake II had very little going on in software mode, and neither did Descent (although it had dynamic lights). But past that very, very early era, just about everything has an effect or two on top of just the texturing.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Sorry I just have a habit of making shaders out to just referring to the pixel kind. Even games have "shader" quality settings that are specifically just for the pixel shaders.

Pixel shaders includes more than texture effects for simulating depth. Technically, the PS2 does not have anything resembling programmable pixel shaders in the hardware. However, certain pixel shader effects could be done on the PS2 via other methods, most notably bloom lighting, depth of field, fur shading, and motion blur.

 

[Mobius1aic]

Pixel shaders includes more than texture effects for simulating depth. Technically, the PS2 does not have anything resembling programmable pixel shaders in the hardware. However, certain pixel shader effects could be done on the PS2 via other methods, most notably bloom lighting, depth of field, fur shading, and motion blur.

Yeah I know. The GS pretty much is a fillrate monster in order to be viable for multi-texturing then you can use one of the Vector Units on the Emotion Engine to do your normal+greyscale or RGB values to do bumpmapping and normal mapping respectively.

One thing I've wondered is how does z-buffering work on the PS2 (or whatever name is given to the PS2's similar process), does the GS have Raster Output Processors or is done by some other method via the pixel units? Please enlighten me.

 

[Squeak]

Since when are geometry effects not "shading?" Modern "vertex shaders" are frequently used for animation and particles. No shading means no geometry effects, too.

Well, pixel, geometry and vertex shaders are purely marketing terms invented by microsoft and shouldn't be taken as official definitions of what a shader is.
A shader i is something that shades, i.e. something that alters the colour. There can be 2D or 2.5D transformation involved (offset mapping or EMBM) but that's only after and based on the results of the 3D transformation hardware.

Directional and dynamic lights require vertex colors to be calculated in real time. I said "predefined" vertex colors. "Predefined" means "not calculated in real-time."

You said:

Most people really have no idea just how terrible a game with nothing other than textures and predefined vertex colors with gouraud shading looks

I took it that by gouraud shading you meant dynamically shaded also, but even then if we took away the little dynamic lighting there is in Klonoa 2, it wouldn't make much of a difference.

...are Z-effects. That's more than a predefined vertex color or single-textured polygon.

The best way to do depth fog on PS2 is by just alphablending the lower bits of the z-buffer on top of the scene, with the values assigned to all RGB channels equally.

...require more than just predefined vertex colors and simple texturing, as they're generally viewing angle dependent, and most flare effects in the PS2 generation involve some kind of blends as well.

Alpha blending is not shading and where are they viewing angel dependent?

I'll grant that Klonoa 2 looks pretty crappy, but there's still more going on than you're willing to admit.

Klonoa 2 has great artistic direction that's all that counts in the end. Remember the medium really is the message.

 

[function]

A shader i is something that shades, i.e. something that alters the colour.

Alpha blending is not shading ...

So you don't use alpha blending to alter the colour of the pixel?

 

[Nano]

Shader is such an amiguous word at times. Nevertheless, a lot of the more advanced pixel shader effects that were seen in Xbox games such as normal mapping in many titles, were far too intensive to be used regularly throughout scenes in PS2 games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, pixel, geometry and vertex shaders are purely marketing terms invented by microsoft and shouldn't be taken as official definitions of what a shader is.
A shader i is something that shades, i.e. something that alters the colour.

Not any more. A shader is now quite a generic term for a small, compartmentalised piece of code that works on a structured piece of data. Or some similar ill-defined definition! Thus a shader can work on pixel data, vertex data, geometry, and even no-graphics related stuff. You write a shader to do GPGPU work. This is a common enough deviation from the origins of the term that you can no longer expect to talk about shading purely on a pixel-colour basis.

I also disagree that the terms are purely MS marketing. They work on different aspects of 3D models and rendering, and are inevitable in programmable hardware even if they went by another name.

Alpha blending is not shading and where are they viewing angel dependent?

If you're applying a visual shading effect to a model, then it would count as shading. As a comparison, in offline rendering where materials are called shaders, you'll apply a transparency shader to you object to make it transparent. Applying a red colour is a shader, just as is applying a straight texture, or a camera mapped texture. Basically anything adjusting the visible properties of an object would count as a shader. And that's using the old and outdated definition! The contemporary definition would say anything adjusting any property of an object, whether it's visible colours as rendered on screen or its shape, would count as a shader!

In the Cell forum, Mike Acton has talked about using 'shaders' as a coding model for Cell. I pointed out IMO the term 'shader' wasn't the best choice of words as it's associated with graphics. His response was :
[QUOTE = Mike Acton]
Yes, we're overloading the word shader. But as pointed out above, the GPGPU community already has been using shaders for non-shading tasks for quite a while so I don't think we're introducing anything here.

Also, I'm inclined to disagree that it isn't applicable "in any sense" -- I believe it is, in all the most important ones: Small fragment of code, optimizable framework, decision making and additional memory management is left up to the fragment, part of a larger pipeline, etc.

And anyway -- The main value is that it evokes a certain idea and expectation of simplicity in the mind of the user and that makes it compelling.[/QUOTE]
This demonstrates how you can't rely on shader to mean any specific graphical function. The language has evolved past that and you can end up talking cross purposes with people by using a different definition to them.

As for the real discussion here, as has been pointed out, lots of shaders have been run on PS2. Texturing is accomplished by a shader in DX, and texturing can be done on PS2, ergo it can hand;e a texturing shader PS2 can also demonstrate great flexibility. Screen warps are shaders PS2 is very good at. Clearly though there's specific cases where it's not so hot, as is the case with normal mapping. The hardware is technically capable of it, but for performance reasons it cost too much. I don't know why though.

 

[archangelmorph]

Agreed shifty..

A 'shader' has nothing to do with marketing because it's an abstract technical term used to generally describe a programmatical model. It may have started life being more specific but over time swelled to abstract a wider range of similar computational concepts. A shader, by it's current definition, is very broad & as such, would be perfectly acceptable to cover things like audio filters for example (low/high pass etc..)

It's not a bad thing either because the use of the term in any context instantly allow engineers to identify an understanding of the implementation model of a foreign concept albeit in an unfamiliar context..

The fact that terminology like this makes its way into the public domain & gets misused/misunderstood often speaks nothing of it's etymology.. Only the problems present in public discussion relating to very specilized subjects by many who may or may not have a solid understand of the subject material..

 

[AlNom]

Fragment program makes more sense (OpenGL)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I agree the word 'shader' has undesirable connotations in current use, but what can you do? There's no governing body that can issue a full international recall and replacement of a word!

 

[Mobius1aic]

I agree the word 'shader' has undesirable connotations in current use, but what can you do? There's no governing body that can issue a full international recall and replacement of a word!

How about "filler"?

(Fill->Fillrate->lol I don't know.....)

 

[fearsomepirate]

The best way to do depth fog on PS2 is by just alphablending the lower bits of the z-buffer on top of the scene, with the values assigned to all RGB channels equally.

So in other words, depth fog on the PS2 is not done by applying a texture to a prelit, gouraud-shaded 3D object. Sorry, in our theoretical game with nothing other than single-textured, prelit polygons, alpha blended z-buffer effects are not included in that "nothing other," regardless of whether or not they are considered "shaders."

Most flares and coronas in video games since Unreal 1 change size and intensity based on the viewing angle and distance from the source. For example, the energy beams coming out of this boss:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrJDof9nc_4

You can't do that with just prelit vertices and single-textured polygons. The flares and glow effect on the ball require a bit more than that, for one. You're going to have to have some sort of variable UV coords or something; ask one of the programmers in here. I don't know how the "fuzz" effect around flares is done, but it's something we didn't see on the N64, so that says to me that it requires something beyond just applying a texture to a polygon.

I'm just having a really hard time finding this supposed 95% of games (let alone good-looking games) that have no effects whatsoever and just rely on prelit, textured polygons (that actually includes N64 games, too!).