What does this ATI guy really do at ATI?

[Reverend]

Jason Mitchell.

I stumbled on his name while googling for some stuff. "3D Application Research Group Team Lead" isn't something I understand.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Met him a couple of times. He's in the reasearch group involved with looking for new feature utilisations as well as coding demos and the like on them - things like the ATI HDR glass balls demo and subsurface scattering, he may also have some involvement in future specifications. Used to be based on the MS campus, but I think thy moved it or something.

 

[3dcgi]

He gives a lot of talks at conferences like GDC and Siggraph. Mainly talking about the techniques used in the demos Dave mentioned. I saw him speak at Siggraph a couple years ago.

 

[PeterAce]

Yes, He did the 'Shader Models' and 'Light Shafts' Presentations at GDC 2004.

Here are the web-steamed video versions:

http://www.ati.com/developer/gdc_video.html

 

[Humus]

I met him at Meltdown (Photo). Don't know exactly what he's doing now though. He used to post on Rage3D as JasonM, but I don't know if he still does. Haven't seen anything in a long while, but then I'm not very active there anymore either.

 

[JasonM [ATI]]

Yowza...

Yowza…a thread on what I do? Didn’t see that one coming.

Anyway, yeah, for some reason google page rank really likes my page, so it often comes up on generic graphics industry searches (I see lots of hits from universities and game companies, particularly from Japan). As for what I do at ATI, Dave Baumann and the other posters summed it up pretty much exactly right. I can’t really talk about what my team is doing at this very moment, but you’ll see it come out in the form of hardware features, product launch features, game features, publications, conference presentations and sample code some months or years down the line. We also do a bit of “platform†architecture work (where “platform†can refer to anything from APIs to GPUs to actual PC or non-PC devices) which doesn’t show up directly as externally-visible material like the educational stuff does.

In a sense, the 3D Application Research Group (3D ARG) is a game developer inside the walls of ATI. No, we don’t make games, but we focus on advanced 3D application development and hence bring that perspective to the rest of ATI’s business. For those of you who watch G4, the currently-airing episode of Cinematech has a bunch of stuff from our group in it, including some interviews.

 

[Geo]

Re: Yowza...

]. . .you’ll see it come out in the form of hardware features, product launch features, game features. .

A little help please on definition of terms, preferably by the "what I mean when I point at it" example method, focusing on the distinctions.

So, what's a hardware feature that isn't a product launch feature or a game feature? What's a product launch feature that isn't a hardware feature or game feature? What's a game feature that isn't a hardware feature or product launch feature?

I suspect you'll tell me there's a good bit of overlap --so I'm hoping you can point at the margins where there isn't.

Oh, and Welcome!

 

[Tim Murray]

hardware feature is self-explanatory, product launch I'm guessing is demos (Ruby), game feature... got me, unless they have some ties with devrel.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Re: Yowza...

So, what's a hardware feature that isn't a product launch feature or a game feature? What's a product launch feature that isn't a hardware feature or game feature? What's a game feature that isn't a hardware feature or product launch feature?

Part of the reasearch is about looking into new methodologies for doing new types of effects on the hardware that is available today. I think a good example of this is subsurface scattering - Pixel Shader 2.0 capabilities where a big hardware "launch" feature, but when it was launched, although people have some idea about what could be done with it, only the surface has been scratched - groups such as Jason's will not just look at new features, but also the capabilities of current features; the subsurface scatting demo came out from ATI with the second revision of PS2.0 hardware (R420), probably because it was only in the lifetime of R300 that they worked out the algorithms to to it.

If you take it on from there, the work they put into producing "new usage scenarios" under current programmable pipelines will probably also give some indications for methods of making it more useful/usable in future hardware/API specifications.

 

[JasonM [ATI]]

Game feature

"Game feature" means a technique/shader/effect which actually ends up in a real game. After all, isn't that primarily why we're all here? Demos are cool and all, but, to the end consumer, they don't justify the investment in a piece of 3D hardware. To a gamer, actually improving the look of real games is worth the investment in a new 3D card, hence we work with real game developers (in conjunction with devrel or just directly) to integrate some of our techniques into games currently in development.

-Jason

 

[DarN]

Re: Yowza...

Oh, and Welcome!

Joined: 03 Aug 2002

You need to post more Jason!

 

[Tim Murray]

a question that Jason may or may not be able to answer: how much of your research is related to general purpose computing with a GPU?

 

[Dave Baumann]

Have you seen ATI's fluid dynamics demo? Jason first demonstrated something similar to that at "Shader Day" over 16 months ago!

 

[Reverend]

Re: Game feature

] hence we work with real game developers (in conjunction with devrel or just directly) to integrate some of our techniques into games currently in development.

Hehehe...

 

[T2k]

He gives a lot of talks at conferences like GDC and Siggraph. Mainly talking about the techniques used in the demos Dave mentioned. I saw him speak at Siggraph a couple years ago.

Yeah, I remember - I think he was there on all Siggraph and GDC since 2002...

 

[T2k]

Re: Yowza...

]Yowza…a thread on what I do? Didn’t see that one coming.

Anyway, yeah, for some reason google page rank really likes my page, so it often comes up on generic graphics industry searches (I see lots of hits from universities and game companies, particularly from Japan). As for what I do at ATI, Dave Baumann and the other posters summed it up pretty much exactly right. I can’t really talk about what my team is doing at this very moment, but you’ll see it come out in the form of hardware features, product launch features, game features, publications, conference presentations and sample code some months or years down the line. We also do a bit of “platform†architecture work (where “platform†can refer to anything from APIs to GPUs to actual PC or non-PC devices) which doesn’t show up directly as externally-visible material like the educational stuff does.

In a sense, the 3D Application Research Group (3D ARG) is a game developer inside the walls of ATI. No, we don’t make games, but we focus on advanced 3D application development and hence bring that perspective to the rest of ATI’s business. For those of you who watch G4, the currently-airing episode of Cinematech has a bunch of stuff from our group in it, including some interviews.

That's cool. 8)


Welcome, BTW.

 

[digitalwanderer]

So if you've been a member here for 2-3 years, had a few posts, and you work for ATi....HOW COME ME AND YOU AREN'T BUDDIES?!?!!??

Hi, my name is John and I like computer games....want to be friends? :|

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Bwhahaha .. well that's one way yo do it.

US

 

[Dave Baumann]

http://www.valvesoftware.com/people.php

Evidently he works for Valve now...

 

[tEd]

http://www.valvesoftware.com/people.php

Evidently he works for Valve now...

That's why he has a valve logo on his website for some time now. I couldn't put 1 and 1 together

Though not first make his way into game development recently. Alex Vlachos works at naughty dog now instead of doing ATI launch demos