WiiGeePeeYou (Hollywood) what IS it ?

[MDX]

you're asking whether Wii can do normal mapping and other advanced texture filtering, there is no way to say for sure just yet. The developer consensus - at least based on every software house I've spoken with - is no. [/B]Wii is more powerful than GameCube, yes, and in many ways it's more powerful than Xbox, too. But not everything about it is immediately superior to Microsoft's old hardware. Xbox had built-in shaders and Wii does not. To really be blunt, it is basically an overclocked GameCube with more RAM. If you don't want to hear that, I'm sorry, bit it's the truth. There are some people who believe that the architecture is capable of normal mapping due in large to the increased CPU speeds and greater RAM, but I personally don't think we'll see many games on Wii that sport the graphical effect. I'd love to be wrong, but at this point in time I've seen no indication otherwise. Super Mario Galaxy has some brilliant effects in place, particularly for textures and particles, but I don't see any full-scene normal mappin

In response to Matt:

Hi all, the purpose of this quick lecture on Normal Mapping is for those who feel like
the Wii not being able to do Normal Mapping = Doom for Nintendo. But, in fact it is not
such a big deal. Before, I go into detail, I would like to say a little about myself just
so that it'll give me at least a little credibility.

First off, I'm a senior 3d animation student at Digipen Institute of Technology, currently
on my final semester and I am on standby hire for a particular company, till I graduate, for
they won't hire me till I have finished my degree program. Also, I have close friends who work
for several companies, including NST, Sony Online, Sony Headquarters, and Valve. For whom were
previous graduates of my school, and who I turn to for advice. Anyway, enough about me, now on
to the lecture.

First off, let me explain what Normal Mapping is(I'll try to be as simple as possible with this
explanation). Normal refers to Normals on a 3d Model, a Normal is what exist within a vert of a
3d Model. Basically a vert are points where edges intersect each other, and they affect the way
light bounces of the model. Now, what "Normal Mapping" does, is that it does what a Bump map does,
it gives textures the illusion of 3 dimensional depth. The difference between Bump Mapping and
Normal Mapping is that Normal Mapping (for lack of better words) a faster way of delivering the
same effect. Technically speaking, Normal Maps makes it easier to make Low Poly Models look High
Poly. That's basically what it is.

Here is an Example that I slapped together real quick for this purpose, so don't flame me for how
bad it looks

Basic Texture Map:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v604/asianknight20/HouseMap.jpg

Rendered House with Texture:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v604/asianknight20/HouseRegular.jpg

Rendered House with Bump Mapping: (Bump Mapping is created by using Blacks and Whites (alpha channel))
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v604/asianknight20/HouseBumped.jpg

Rendered House with Normal Mapping:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v604/asianknight20/HouseNorm.jpg

So, there you have it, I'm not sure if I did a good job in my explanations, since I've never done so before, if you have any questions feel free to ask. I hope this was informative.

http://boards.ign.com/nintendo_wii_lobby/b8270/135240244/p1
---

So... since the average person cant tell the difference between Normal Mapping and Bump Mapping, As long as Wii can do one or the other what does it matter?

 

[fearsomepirate]

Devs sure played around with the PS2 a lot. Konami, Capcom, EA, Criterion, Naughty Dog, (all SCE studios, actually), and Namco all did some pretty slick things with the console. Furthermore, I think just about everyone who released a Cube exclusive managed to do at least a few interesting things with it, much to the contrary of those who say that devs will never wrap their heads around it. Obviously, Capcom and Factor 5 did a good jop with the TEV, but if you look at just about any non-internally developed Gamecube exclusive (which includes a lot of Nintendo-branded games, actually), you'll see things like depth of field, reflections, water effects, heavy use of light maps, and other things. Maybe not in the volume you see them in Rebel Strike or Mario Sunshine, but they certainly are there. Red Steel has quite a few TEV effects, and this from a developer that never did anything interesting with the Gamecube. The parts of it that weren't rushed look fantastic.

Cross-platform games didn't do anything cool on Cube, but news flash, they didn't do anything cool on Xbox, either. It sounds like Wii still has fixed-function T&L, so don't expect anything that requires heavy use of a vertex shader. It may also not have space for a stencil buffer. Those were ERP's biggest criticisms, IIRC.

 

[pc999]

Maybe the choice of nintendo not to focus on specs will be their downfall in a sort of way? Not that it will make the Wii a flop but in the sense of there is a decent amount of power in the Wii but because it will take some time and effort to get it out of the machine, plus that it will never look like ps3/x360 and Nintendo doesnt focus on the gfx alot of devs wont take alot of effort to create a good looking game. I really think nintendo should put some effort into having 3rd party devs creating good looking games. Sure it wont become ps3/x360 gfx but seeing most games looking even worse than ps2 games is just wrong.

I think it may hurt them later when the novelity hears off, then there is two changes 1) they have really good exclussive games that will make both gamers and devs do games to wii 2)it will end up with games that cant hold the interesting and being a "big gimmick" and starting to loss interest, it is a vicius circle and all depend on the first years games.

In response to Matt:


http://boards.ign.com/nintendo_wii_lobby/b8270/135240244/p1
---

So... since the average person cant tell the difference between Normal Mapping and Bump Mapping, As long as Wii can do one or the other what does it matter?

Depending on the angle it can make a big diference. But it still very usefull for many good fxs that (eg lighting, ike in Mario), for some reason, devs never used to a big extent.

Red Steel has quite a few TEV effects, and this from a developer that never did anything interesting with the Gamecube. The parts of it that weren't rushed look fantastic.

I thought that most fxs are EMBM based, anyway considering everything envolving RS devlopment (~1 year of working, launch title, UE2 (can anything be worst? ), controler, some art chages...) they did a great job specialy on the CPU side of things.

It sounds like Wii still has fixed-function T&L, so don't expect anything that requires heavy use of a vertex shader. It may also not have space for a stencil buffer. Those were ERP's biggest criticisms, IIRC.

Meybe they did it, as better shadowing as one of the first implementations of EA.
Anyway one cant say anything without know what is inside, those transistores are used to something and we still didnt saw them working.


IMO some of the big problems of Wii gfx will be 1)the downplay made by Nintendo itself (at least in the first years) 2) The lack of technical expertisse of many of the devs working on Wii (it will take for many, a few years before they have it) 3) the lack of midleware engines and librarys (they should do like Sony and, if not buying, at least put trial versions of some engines in the SDK, this way they would optimize the engines all they can to Wii).

 

[fearsomepirate]

I thought that most fxs are EMBM based

I believe EMBM is a texture effect, therefore is done in the TEV. Also, there were quite a few other indirect texturing effects--the reflections in the floor, the way the frame blurs when you get hit by a sword, and the glass in the dojo are off the top of my head.

 

[Fox5]

I believe it was mentioned and disputed before whether or not wii runs at full clock speed while running gamecube games...

Well, just got an action replay that works on wii so my roommates and I can play naruto 4 (an import fighting game), and as it's something I was already very familiar with, I can list the differences I notice:

The entire visual output is clearer, crisper, and brighter. Sort of like comparing a matrox g400 to a tnt2 back in the day, just in general the wii has better quality output than the cube.

Framerate problems are lessened, but not gone. On the cube though, the framerate chugged in general, especially when blurring or particle effects occured, which doesn't happen (the slowdown) on the wii. One thing that made the game crawl on the cube instead merely has sporadic framerates (dropping and then picking back up to full speed) on the wii was having two of the puppeteer characters on the screen (they have pixel shaded strings or something), so performance does seem improved.

The game used to have substantial load times when switching characters on the character select screen. It still has some, but they appear reduced.

Now then, whether the apparent performance increase is due to the wii running at 1.5x the speed (Which, since a gameboy advance emulator for gc runs at 1.5x the speed on wii, seems to be so) or that the game was using the aram for texture swapping (would that be possible in a fighting game?) and the switch to much faster ram has just improved performance, I dunno.

 

[Teasy]

I never take what Matt says too literally when it comes to hardware, because I just don't think he understands a lot of the more technical info he hears. Though I would say that its probably safe to assume that Wii doesn't have a significantly upgraded pixel pipleline or T&L unit (no vertex shader).

 

[The_legend_of_drtre]

I've said this quite a few times on IGn but nobody seems to believe me. Matt's sources are the mid range talent developers. He talks to people like Activision and THQ about the Wii's graphical abilitities. These devs never even pushed the GC's limits with the exception of Yukes which works under the THQ name.

Matt is not in contact with Sega,Namco, or even Retro reps. The companies that knew what the GC was capable of and what the Wii is capable of now.

Have you guys noticed that we haven't seen hardly any footage from japanese developers that were known for pushing the GC's graphics?

Where is the footage of Namco's Wii games?

Resident evil UC?

Where is the footage of Final Fantasy?

They are all keeping there games under wraps. Truth is we do not know what the Wii is really capable of until we see these games.

Sega is the only one of those companies that has really released footage and what they have shown is some of the best Wii visuals to date in Sonic and the secret rings.

I find it odd that the developers Matt talks to say Wii is a souped up xbox or not that much more powerful yet reps from Sega japan they they are quite pleased with the amount of power in the Wii. Maybe western developers are just dragging their feet? Maybe they are just trying to cash in on the holyday season with quick ports because they didn't have time to improve the graphics much. Time will tell.

 

[theafu]

I've said this quite a few times on IGn but nobody seems to believe me. Matt's sources are the mid range talent developers. He talks to people like Activision and THQ about the Wii's graphical abilitities. These devs never even pushed the GC's limits with the exception of Yukes which works under the THQ name.

Matt is not in contact with Sega,Namco, or even Retro reps. The companies that knew what the GC was capable of and what the Wii is capable of now.

Have you guys noticed that we haven't seen hardly any footage from japanese developers that were known for pushing the GC's graphics?

Where is the footage of Namco's Wii games?

Resident evil UC?

Where is the footage of Final Fantasy?

They are all keeping there games under wraps. Truth is we do not know what the Wii is really capable of until we see these games.

Sega is the only one of those companies that has really released footage and what they have shown is some of the best Wii visuals to date in Sonic and the secret rings.

I find it odd that the developers Matt talks to say Wii is a souped up xbox or not that much more powerful yet reps from Sega japan they they are quite pleased with the amount of power in the Wii. Maybe western developers are just dragging their feet? Maybe they are just trying to cash in on the holyday season with quick ports because they didn't have time to improve the graphics much. Time will tell.

Nice to see you Tre but watch how you say things and start topics here they will boot you super quick if you get into console wars or instigate them.

 

[The_legend_of_drtre]

Nice to see you Tre but watch how you say things and start topics here they will boot you super quick if you get into console wars or instigate them.

I probably won't be starting many topics here at all. Just commenting, observing and learning.

 

[pc999]

I believe EMBM is a texture effect, therefore is done in the TEV. Also, there were quite a few other indirect texturing effects--the reflections in the floor, the way the frame blurs when you get hit by a sword, and the glass in the dojo are off the top of my head.

From what I remember from patents and such they showed two distinct blocks, one to the TEV and other to the EMBM, which makes sense once one is hardwired and the other is programmable (althought dont know if you can use both at the same time). But the glass in the dojo is very nice and made in the TEV.

 

[fearsomepirate]

From what I remember from patents and such they showed two distinct blocks, one to the TEV and other to the EMBM, which makes sense once one is hardwired and the other is programmable

All texturing is done in the TEV, which incorporates quite a few features. Being as a bump map is a texture, it doesn't make sense for EMBM to be done in a different part of the hardware. Further, the Flipper IC diagrams I've seen have blocks for the DSP, the TEV, the T&L, the eDRAM, etc, but no separate transistors for an isolated EMBM unit.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I've just watched a GameTrailer video review of Super Swing Golf, and I've noticed the self-shadowing that featured in the early promo shots has disappeared. Isn't that both Pokemon and this that started with excellent self-shadowing lighting that have dropped it? This is both curious and I think a bit disconcerting. There's not a lot happening on screen in the golf game, so surely there's some spare cycles to chuck at self-shadowing? Why was it shown earlier and then dropped?

 

[pc999]

All texturing is done in the TEV, which incorporates quite a few features. Being as a bump map is a texture, it doesn't make sense for EMBM to be done in a different part of the hardware. Further, the Flipper IC diagrams I've seen have blocks for the DSP, the TEV, the T&L, the eDRAM, etc, but no separate transistors for an isolated EMBM unit.

This is what I remember from the patents, I am not good what finding them so I cant show you. but it makes sense, once one is hardwired and the other is programable.

I've just watched a GameTrailer video review of Super Swing Golf, and I've noticed the self-shadowing that featured in the early promo shots has disappeared. Isn't that both Pokemon and this that started with excellent self-shadowing lighting that have dropped it? This is both curious and I think a bit disconcerting. There's not a lot happening on screen in the golf game, so surely there's some spare cycles to chuck at self-shadowing? Why was it shown earlier and then dropped?

I have a personal theory that devs (even those how want) for some reason (eg we know that nintendo is late and still still working on upgrading the tools and making the networking ones, while everyone is rushing the games out), didnt had the chance to use whatever is new in Wii, that is why the promo shoots had all the same kind of fxs (eg RS/Pokemon/SSG all had self-shadowing (at the time offline) also several games are supossed to have online but didnt had) and one of the new features is ss.

I like this theory because it explains why 3 very diferent companys use the same fxs, said that would look like that and at the end they didnt, still just a theory.

 

[fearsomepirate]

This is what I remember from the patents, I am not good what finding them so I cant show you. but it makes sense, once one is hardwired and the other is programable.

From what I've understood from ERP's post, EMBM makes use of dot-product capabilities in the TEV. Unlike SM1.0 vector handling, however, you can't take arbitrary dot products and thus are limited in the arguments you can pass in. I think tha'ts what people mean when they say EMBM is "hardwired." Now, it may in fact be that using the TEV for EMBM makes it impossible to do certain other effects in the same pass, which would be what the diagram represents. I've seen other block diagrams on Gamasutra for other TEV effects that show a similar thing. I think what it all comes down to is that the TEV is programmable, but it's not as flexible as SM1.0 pixel shaders.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

Did the original demo contain soft self-shadows? Here's a link to compare.

The first trailer/demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj2Jqz-rxk8

Real game footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKjopFeJkgg&mode=related&search= (no need to watch the entire thing)

The original demo is way too blurry to see accurately, but the shadowing on Pikachu looks the same in both videos.

Check out this video to see some of the effects used in the game. I can't say that there is or isn't any self-shadows from any of the footage online. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkEQ6Wcrejc&mode=related&search=

 

[pc999]

From what I've understood from ERP's post, EMBM makes use of dot-product capabilities in the TEV. Unlike SM1.0 vector handling, however, you can't take arbitrary dot products and thus are limited in the arguments you can pass in. I think tha'ts what people mean when they say EMBM is "hardwired." Now, it may in fact be that using the TEV for EMBM makes it impossible to do certain other effects in the same pass, which would be what the diagram represents. I've seen other block diagrams on Gamasutra for other TEV effects that show a similar thing. I think what it all comes down to is that the TEV is programmable, but it's not as flexible as SM1.0 pixel shaders.

Meybe it is that, thanks for the info.

Did the original demo contain soft self-shadows? Here's a link to compare.

The first trailer/demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj2Jqz-rxk8

Real game footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKjopFeJkgg&mode=related&search= (no need to watch the entire thing)

The original demo is way too blurry to see accurately, but the shadowing on Pikachu looks the same in both videos.

Check out this video to see some of the effects used in the game. I can't say that there is or isn't any self-shadows from any of the footage online. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkEQ6Wcrejc&mode=related&search=

Look better, in the octopos like arms creature (you see the shadows of the arms), in the whale, or in most creatures near their arms or legs.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I've said this quite a few times on IGn but nobody seems to believe me. Matt's sources are the mid range talent developers. He talks to people like Activision and THQ about the Wii's graphical abilitities. These devs never even pushed the GC's limits with the exception of Yukes which works under the THQ name.

Matt is not in contact with Sega,Namco, or even Retro reps. The companies that knew what the GC was capable of and what the Wii is capable of now.

Have you guys noticed that we haven't seen hardly any footage from japanese developers that were known for pushing the GC's graphics?

Where is the footage of Namco's Wii games?

Resident evil UC?

Where is the footage of Final Fantasy?

They are all keeping there games under wraps. Truth is we do not know what the Wii is really capable of until we see these games.

Sega is the only one of those companies that has really released footage and what they have shown is some of the best Wii visuals to date in Sonic and the secret rings.

I find it odd that the developers Matt talks to say Wii is a souped up xbox or not that much more powerful yet reps from Sega japan they they are quite pleased with the amount of power in the Wii. Maybe western developers are just dragging their feet? Maybe they are just trying to cash in on the holyday season with quick ports because they didn't have time to improve the graphics much. Time will tell.

could be. I hope you're right about Sega. can't wait to see what they do on 2nd-gen Wii games, and Capcom too.

 

[Capeta]

I say we will see a small graphical improvement from RE:UC but not too significant. I'm not really sure if the RE after that will be much improved graphically either. It seems the Wii is around 3X more powerful than GC at most and most of it is just higher clocks and more RAM.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Wouldnt it be a little strange to only see a small improvement if the system really is 3 times faster? I mean, whats the use of sticking in 3 times more ram if its not going to improve anything?

 

[Capeta]

Wouldnt it be a little strange to only see a small improvement if the system really is 3 times faster? I mean, whats the use of sticking in 3 times more ram if its not going to improve anything?

No it wouldn't be strange at all. The GC wasn't really RAM limited as shown from games like RE4. Increasing the RAM will allow better textures but the graphics bottleneck will be the GPU which doesn't seem to be anything more than a clock increase. Nothing we've seen so far indicates the GPU has got some secret processing ability. What we can expect is slightly higher polycounts and slightly higher resolution textures and maybe slightly higher framerates. Lighting and screen resolution will probably stay the same other than widescreen. I doubt you'll see HDR or simulated displacement mapping etc., none of that fancy stuff.