WiiGeePeeYou (Hollywood) what IS it ?

[fearsomepirate]

Whatever it is, it's not THAT impressive - I mean, just look a the cars for example in the domino-video - the "hitboxes" are a lot bigger than the cars themselves, they're knocking eachother down without touching the next one.

It's a lot better than anything I ever saw on the Gamecube. It might not be impressive compared to what a 3.2 GHz triple-core CPU can do, but it's really quite good. Did you see the video with 472 Elebits in a room? Here it is:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=x-j9wA6ilBA

The closest thing we can compare Elebits to is Pikmin, which had I think no more than ~150 characters onscreen and certainly not much in the way of physics. I think that would require more than overclocking a Gamecube by 50%.

Also, probably the best thing to compare the new Pokemon to is Baten Kaitos, since it seems to use the Gamecube pretty well (lots of lighting, particles, depth of field, etc) and has similar-sized battle scenes. Pokemon's lighting and distortion effects go way beyond what Baten Kaitos did...again, more than a 50% overclock, but not necessarily a radical architectural change. I'm going to guess that the capability of the TEV has been ~doubled and it might have more than 4 pipelines for more fillrate. There are a lot of fillrate burning effects in the 2nd gen Wii titles.

 

[MDX]

The car collisions look fine to me, it's the boats that suck.

I dont get you guys, I think the physics looks awesome, but its not just about the physics, its what you can do with it!
Virtual dominoes with not only dominoes but objects the sizes of boats! Not only that, with llarge objects stacked on top each other. I mean, I can see people pouring hours into setting up complex domino patterns with this game. And its just a minigame!

Secondly, obviously you missed the fact you can play with the g-force setting. So what you saw could have been based on a manipulated g-force. And I havent seen any game out there on the 360 or PS3 that use it in such a varied and unique way.

And I love the art direction.

 

[PeterT]

One important thing to note is that the game seems to use a very simplified friction model. This can be seen in the third video, where the balls don't roll down the hill, but slide without changing their angular velocity. Also, as others have noted, the collision geoms are quite coarse.

One impressive thing with the domino video is that it still works in the end, where a lot of bodies are touching and thus no longer insular. The only rigid body physics engine that I ever used (ODE) gets quite a bit slower in such situations. However, I'd wager this has more to do with Havok being very efficient than with any mystery components in the Wii.

(Btw, tangentially: I'll have to stand in line for a few hours for my Wii, I don't remember this happening at any Nintendo console launch before here in Austria)

 

[swaaye]

I think WiiSports bowling is using a fairly simple friction model too. It makes the pins behave as though they don't have the right mass since they don't slide well at all. Otherwise that game is quite impressive.

 

[Tagrineth]

I dont get you guys, I think the physics looks awesome, but its not just about the physics, its what you can do with it!

Harping on the fact that the bounding boxes around the boats are gigantic. Even though the boats are open "cups", the bounding boxes are clearly quite squared.

 

[Kaotik]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=X1I-OeZ3wB4
The TV stays perfectly still in it's place in the air after the "box" under it is taken off, and this is while there supposedly is "normal gravity" (0.19~0.20)

 

[fearsomepirate]

Regardless, it's a lot better than anything I saw in Gamecube. There was ragdoll in Geist and some cross-platform games, you could toss around near-weightless boxes in Second Sight, and maybe there was a bit in Chibi Robo?

 

[MDX]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=X1I-OeZ3wB4
The TV stays perfectly still in it's place in the air after the "box" under it is taken off, and this is while there supposedly is "normal gravity" (0.19~0.20)

Lol, no explanation for that one!

 

[MDX]

Regardless, it's a lot better than anything I saw in Gamecube. There was ragdoll in Geist and some cross-platform games, you could toss around near-weightless boxes in Second Sight, and maybe there was a bit in Chibi Robo?

I was quite disappointed with the ragdoll physics in Gears of War.
The fact that you could manipulate a dead enemy when walking near him was nice, but it was way too unrealistic for the size and weight of the supposed character. They would just roll around like they were filled with helium when you nudged them.

But getting back to Elebits, what type of lighting or shading techniques do you think are being used? What Im most disappointed about the game, and I think it would have added alot to the visualls, is that I dont see any shadows. Your tossing objects all over the place, but I dont see shadows being cast on anything not even the ground. I think shadows would also help with the feeling of weight and dimension. Do you think this is a developer issue or a GPU power issue?

Also, has anybody followed SADNESS by NIBRIS.net?
Developers just announced they recieved Nintendo liscenses.
They showed off their set-up. And on the screen of their laptop you can see the game SADNESS:

Now some enterprising person, or insider had managed to get a clear copy of this screenshot
I ask, is this an FMV game? OR have these guys unlocked why the Wii GPU is called Hollywood?


http://www.paheal.net/sadness3.jpg

Mod:
There're image size rules on Beyond3d. Everything over 800x600 should be img tagged. Read up in the Console Forum FAQ

 

[Asher]

First hint that it's not done on the Wii is it's in 720p.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Now some enterprising person, or insider had managed to get a clear copy of this screenshot
I ask, is this an FMV game? OR have these guys unlocked why the Wii GPU is called Hollywood?

It's probably just concept art, just like everything else we've seen. Having a shadow for every object in Elebits would likely be too taxing on the system. You can have lots of objects onscreen, and a shadow map for every single one, especially if there's a lot of overlap, could just kill the machine.

 

[MDX]

First hint that it's not done on the Wii is it's in 720p.

Hmmm... what is more peculiar is that they have videos of the "game" (not currently online)
in both 480p and 720p .

But the question is, if they know they are making a game for a 480p system,
why bother with the 720?

fearsomepirate:
It's probably just concept art, just like everything else we've seen. Having a shadow for every object in Elebits would likely be too taxing on the system. You can have lots of objects onscreen, and a shadow map for every single one, especially if there's a lot of overlap, could just kill the machine.

Regarding Elebits-
So you think that the Wii couldnt handle it. What system could? 360? PS3?
But that makes me wonder about the clouds on the ground in Zelda + Dragon Quest. Are those
shadows? Funny thing, is I remember seeing two patents that Nintendo made for shadows:
www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week37/OG/html/1310-2/US07104891-20060912.html
http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=4866196520259&lang=en-US

Regarding Sadness-
It could very well be concept art, but it definately not drawn. Their drawings are good, but not THAT good. As well, I think I noticed depth of field in that picture (trees, foot) that you cant get with a sketch.

--- I just found another Sketch/Concept/Screenshot-
It appears that it could be a combo of drawing and digital work. Or, its something else:

A Nibris team member claimed at the GSforum that: “This is not artwork - its from PC work-station shot in-game. We hope that for the Wii this game will look like this screen or very near.â€￾ Click the above screenshot for a full-screen version.
More new Sadness details: (more…)
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/sadness-nibris-wii-screenshot-big.jpg

from http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2006/08/05/

 

[OVERLORD]

Pokemon Battle Revolution http://www.pokemon.co.jp/game/wii/pbr_sp/battle.html

 

[OtakingGX]

We're constantly reminded that the peak polygon numbers that manufacturers throw out are for flat shaded polygons. Why not, then, make a game that uses lots of smaller polygons but is only black and white? Add what appears to be a grain filter, and you've got a very cinematic game that looks awesome.

Depth of field seems to be a difficult effect to pull off, but if you did it right, it could benefit you when it comes to render time as it would limit the detail you had to render the background at.

 

[fearsomepirate]

That's not happening on a 243 MHz 4-pipeline GPU, even without textures. These guys are a lot of talk, but until I see something running on a Wii, I'm just saying "Oh, nice picture."

 

[3dcgi]

We're constantly reminded that the peak polygon numbers that manufacturers throw out are for flat shaded polygons.

I can't speak for all GPUs, but in cases I know of peak numbers aren't for flat shaded polygons, rather there are a limited number of interpolants per clock. So maybe color and texture coordinates can be interpolated at peak rate, but add anything else and the rate gets cut in half. I believe G80 interpolates 128 scalar attributes/clock. Everything past the interpolators should be the same regardless of flat or gouraud shading.

 

[matrix960]

We're constantly reminded that the peak polygon numbers that manufacturers throw out are for flat shaded polygons. .

It's true!!!! For PS2, they said : "66 millions polygons/sec" and for XBOX : "116.5 millions polygons/sec"... Whereas Nintendo said :"6-12 millions with all effects in game". That number has been surpassed since (almost 20 millions polygons/sec in games like Rebel Strike and RE4). So for the Wii, we can have 30 millions polygons/sec with all effects!

 

[crystall]

It's true!!!! For PS2, they said : "66 millions polygons/sec" and for XBOX : "116.5 millions polygons/sec"... Whereas Nintendo said :"6-12 millions with all effects in game". That number has been surpassed since (almost 20 millions polygons/sec in games like Rebel Strike and RE4). So for the Wii, we can have 30 millions polygons/sec with all effects!

Polygon rate measures are meaningless as they don't take into account the nature of polygons which depends both on the way they are shaded and their size. Depending on those parameters you will be bottlenecked either by bandwidth, fill-rate or whatever else gets in the way.

 

[AlNom]

I was quite disappointed with the ragdoll physics in Gears of War.
The fact that you could manipulate a dead enemy when walking near him was nice, but it was way too unrealistic for the size and weight of the supposed character. They would just roll around like they were filled with helium when you nudged them.

I think you're missing the point

 

[MDX]

Just read a review about elebits:

During the 10+ hours that it requires to finish Elebits youll be hard pressed to find many issues. At times its a bit hard to open doors and shoot Elebits because of collision issues but that really doesnt detract much from the fun. The only real show stopper comes late in the game during the final two levels where some serious slowdown occurs. The areas are large, there are 100s of Elebits on screen, and a ridiculous amount of building and objects all colliding in one big physics equation. It essentially turns into a slideshow at this point, but its still playable.
http://www.gamebrink.com/nintendo-wii/1897-Elebits-reviews-2.html

slloowwwddddooooowwwwwwnnnnnnnn.........

I thought slowdown was a thing of the past especially because the Wii doenst have to worry about outputting in HD. Actually Im wondering if slowdown is due to the CPU or the GPU
As well, can anyone postulate if this the kind of action that would cause slowdown on 360s or PS3s? Is the slowdown due to sloppy programming?
Or is the slowdown intentional so the player does'nt get overwhelmed?- seriously, sometimes I like slowdowns in games reminds me of slow-mo in movies.