The_legend_of_drtre
Newcomer
::clears throat:: NO.
WiiGeePeeYou (Hollywood) what IS it ?
- Thread starter Megadrive1988
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::clears throat:: NO.
The_legend_of_drtre
Newcomer
I don't think Wii would need a whole bunch of extra transistrots for that emulation. The Wii is way more powerful than any of those systems.
i would agree with this if nintendo hadn't managed to get N64 emulation right (not perfect, but close enough) on GC. snes and nes emulation should be trivial at this point as well, and actualy, were both also done on the GC (nes games on the zelda bonus disk and metroid prime, and super punch out on fight night round 2) with great success. i'm pretty confident that the way nintendo is into cost savings they wouldn't be wasting transisors (and paying for it with every system sold) on what they can spend some man hours implementing in software (and paying for it once).
You know, that's a clever idea... The games DO output in their original resolution, but you could do that with an emulator on a console anyway... As Mr. C. Colon said, Nintendo have already pulled off perfect (for a few games) N64 emulation on the GameCube so they're probably doing the same for the NES/SNES/N64.
However, these are Nintendo consoles: perhaps they're not emulating the Turbografx and Megadrive... ...And there's a Turbografx and Megadrive in every Wii!
However, these are Nintendo consoles: perhaps they're not emulating the Turbografx and Megadrive... ...And there's a Turbografx and Megadrive in every Wii!
i haven't played too many VC titles, and i haven't bought any myself, i did spend some time playing mario64 and it looked like they gave it the same treatment they gave the emulated zeldas on GC. ie. 640*480 and better filtering. many original N64 games were 320*240 with antialiasing.
Normal Mapping
Dewy's Adventure from Konami sports Normal Mapping. The debate can end now. Even IGN was shocked here's part of the interview:
IGN Wii: Dewy's Adventure looks to use a top-down perspective and appears very different from Elebits. Elebits was all about manipulation of objects in the environment. Does Dewy's Adventure use heavy physics in the way that Elebits did?
Mukaitoge: For Elebits, we placed a great degree of emphasis on physics. We did not focus much of our energies on the graphical presentation of the game. For Dewy's Adventure, we spent all lot of time on perfecting our graphics technology. We worked hard on our textures. We are very proud to say that we have implemented normal mapping in Dewy's Adventure.
IGN Wii: This may be the first game that we have seen with normal mapping. We weren't really sure if the Wii supported it.
Mukaitoge: Really? We used normal mapping for some of the bosses in the game. If you look closely at the trailer, you can see normal mapping on the boss character at the end.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/760/760682p1.html
I thought it was funny how Mukaitoge said "really" as if we knew that the Wii could do normal mapping.
Dewy's Adventure from Konami sports Normal Mapping. The debate can end now. Even IGN was shocked here's part of the interview:
IGN Wii: Dewy's Adventure looks to use a top-down perspective and appears very different from Elebits. Elebits was all about manipulation of objects in the environment. Does Dewy's Adventure use heavy physics in the way that Elebits did?
Mukaitoge: For Elebits, we placed a great degree of emphasis on physics. We did not focus much of our energies on the graphical presentation of the game. For Dewy's Adventure, we spent all lot of time on perfecting our graphics technology. We worked hard on our textures. We are very proud to say that we have implemented normal mapping in Dewy's Adventure.
IGN Wii: This may be the first game that we have seen with normal mapping. We weren't really sure if the Wii supported it.
Mukaitoge: Really? We used normal mapping for some of the bosses in the game. If you look closely at the trailer, you can see normal mapping on the boss character at the end.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/760/760682p1.html
I thought it was funny how Mukaitoge said "really" as if we knew that the Wii could do normal mapping.
'Fraid not!
'We used some normal mapping on the bosses' doesn't really smack of direct support in the hardware. Could be it's an expensive multi-pass implementation that's used sparingly only on major characters. If it was as readily doable as on a standard GPU, you'd want the normal mapping on the scenery where it's most prominent, yet the screenshots show flat scenery.
The comment 'we didn't know Wii could do normal mapping' can be answered with a surprise when the developer thinks to themselves that any programmable hardware (including CPU) can do normal mapping. You don't need custom hardware to be able to do it. Thus it could be that the normal mapping is calculated on the CPU. The interviewer didn't distinctly say if Hollywood supported normal mapping. And again, by that you'd need to describe what sort of implementation. In shaders, it's a string of commands and a couple of texture maps. Does Hollywood support a direct normal mapping function, or sufficient programmability to manage NM in one pass?
Yes, but the thing about Matt C... the thing you have to remember about Matt C... Matt C... Matt C is a prat.
Not being able to do normal mapping at all is very different from being able to do it efficiently enough to use it prolifically to improve visuals. Whether Matt has meant 'not do it all' or 'not do it easily enough' I'm not sure, but most understand him to have meant 'not at all'. The question as to whether Hollywood supports normal mapping in a way that enables it to be used well rather than just as a token effect is still unanswered by this interview and game. And the question about normal mapping ties in with the question of Hollywood being a Flipper derivative without much added special sauce, as you'd think if Nintendo were to have but one new ability added, it'd be normal mapping as that makes a huge difference to visuals at minimal cost.
Not being able to do normal mapping at all is very different from being able to do it efficiently enough to use it prolifically to improve visuals. Whether Matt has meant 'not do it all' or 'not do it easily enough' I'm not sure, but most understand him to have meant 'not at all'. The question as to whether Hollywood supports normal mapping in a way that enables it to be used well rather than just as a token effect is still unanswered by this interview and game. And the question about normal mapping ties in with the question of Hollywood being a Flipper derivative without much added special sauce, as you'd think if Nintendo were to have but one new ability added, it'd be normal mapping as that makes a huge difference to visuals at minimal cost.
You know, that's a clever idea... The games DO output in their original resolution, but you could do that with an emulator on a console anyway... As Mr. C. Colon said, Nintendo have already pulled off perfect (for a few games) N64 emulation on the GameCube so they're probably doing the same for the NES/SNES/N64.
However, these are Nintendo consoles: perhaps they're not emulating the Turbografx and Megadrive... ...And there's a Turbografx and Megadrive in every Wii!
All the games are definitely upscaled to 640x480, with perhaps some minor filtering applied.
I don't know if any gamecube or wii software has output at a resolution lower than 640x480.
And the n64 games look like they just benefit from properly implemented features on the wii, and not any additional filtering. Just proper bilinear and mipmapping, and the possibility that edge AA has been replaced with some other form. (haven't played the games enough though to tell if they even have AA)
You know, I've noticed that Opera runs at what seems to be almost 800x600. It's definitely not filling the whole screen, though, appearing to be basically letterboxed around the whole image. So I'd say this shows that the GPU almost certainly has no ability to go higher resolution (probably eDRAM size issue). Unless there's some other reason for them to letterbox it.
DeadlyNinja
Veteran
Question: Is that normal mapping used in the picture below? That game is Rampage on the Wii.
The_legend_of_drtre
Newcomer
Question: Is that normal mapping used in the picture below? That game is Rampage on the Wii.
Yup.
The_legend_of_drtre
Newcomer
We did.
1. I don't think it's 800x600, as my PC on a TV at that resolution looks sharper.
2. If it was 800x600, then the system is downscaling it to 480p.
3. Not letterboxed, that's compensation for overscan. Looks like Nintendo went a bit on the extreme side, but considering the Wii is targetted at SDTVs, it's quite possibly some will have that much overscan.
What's the difference between bump mapping and normal mapping?
The_legend_of_drtre
Newcomer
The entire post below was stolen lol... from somebody on the nintendo.com forums of all places
But it's dead on and he explains it alot better than I can:Bump Mapping is a techique were you use a Hight Map. It looks like a black and white image. When renderd by a game, the white areas are renderd so it looks whatever is white is protruding outwards. The more white it is, the more it looks like its protruding forwards. The same and oposit effect happens with the color black, while grey is nutral. If you took a photo of a brick wall, and then put a bump map on it, it would look like the bricks are poping out, creating "bumps" on the surface wich adds detail and texture to the world.
A big problem with Bump Maps is that its not a very effective illusion for camera perspective. Next time, in your favoret FPS, find a wall that looks all bumpy and textured like a brick wall. Now, stand facing the wall, then turn left or right so your vision is parraell to the wall. In real life, the bricks should be sticking out, but instead, it looks like a flat wall even though when you were staring right at it it looked like it had depht.
So Bump Mapping works only when you are stairing at it at the right angle, its not a true bump and the illusion can eazly be broken.
Enter the Normal Map.
A Normal Map to put it simply, is a way more complicated version of a Bump Map. To hold the effect better, developers first build a high rez moddle, or take high-rez samples from a texture. Then, they use the complex high-rez image to figure out a X, Y, Z cordinates wich are represented with blue, red, and green colors. Once this map is created, the Normal Mapped is place on the game model and is now renderd so it will mimic the look of the high-rez moddle that the Normal Map was based off of. This allows a low polly moddle to look like a high rez Pixar graphic, and since the map works in 3D space, a brick wall looks like a brick wall no matter how you look at it.
The big discrepency with the Wii is that it has no hardware shaders. If you want to shade something, you have to do it yourself. Normal Mapping requred good CPU, GPU and Shaders. Since people assume the Wii is underpowerd than X-Box, nobody thinks it can do stuff like this.
The 360 has built in shaders, so devs can just slap the Normal Map on and throw it in the game. This is the reason why you see alot of PC ports on the 360, as well as why devs get Normal Map overboard and Normal every fricken thing in a game.
Lets put it this way, Toilt Paper dose not need a Normal Map.
For Normal Maping and advance features to work, you have to be a good programmer and make the tools yourself. Saddly, while this dose cost money abit very little, the main reason why you do not see Dev's using this is because they are lazy and do not and would rather sit on there but and would scream if they lost the remote control on the TV instead of just walking 3 feet and turning it off.
I personally like that you have to create your shaders, Okami is an example game were all the shaders were created on the software side, since its there baby, they had a compleat control on how the game looked. We all know how flawless the game looked and look...no NORMAL MAP.
Even though you can do it on a PS2: http://playstation2-linux.com/download/p2lsd/ps2_normalmapping.pdf
Problem with it on a PS2 is that the CPU is very low so the game chugs. Wii has more than a suffecent CPU/GPU to run Normal Mapping, so in the future if Devs are not lazy you will see more of it.
DeadlyNinja
Veteran
Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe I've kind of figured out how to tell the difference simply by looking at a screen shot. Keep in mind I'm still just a newbie so don't laugh if I'm wrong. I think the specular lighting on those models gave it away.
Someone said in a previous post a few pages ago...
"per pixel calculations for diffuse, specular and reflective components"
I don't think you can get diffuse, specular and reflective components on regular bump mapping.
Sounds like you're referring to the shader article at gamasutra. I"m wondering myself what makes that way of bump mapping different from these two forms?
The_legend_of_drtre
Newcomer
Bump mapping only looks good at a certain angle. Normal mapping keeps the same effect of bump mapping at every viewable angle.
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