ZDNet/JAPAN: Ken Kutaragi, PS3 Route To Realization

[DemoCoder]

Since a renderfarm of 500 Pentium4s cannot do the Matrix in real time I have a hard time seeing how the PS3 can achieve it.

Kind of interesting that the GSCube did an interactive rendition of the opening Trinity scene back in 2000:

The "Trinity Scene" (jumping rooftops) is not done with CGI. It is a straight bluescreen effect. Most of the effects in the Matrix, with the exception of Neo touching the mirror, the bug in his stomach, and the real world sentinels, were done with traditional photography and compositing techniques.

The bullet time shots are photography combined with Image Based Rendering in the background, but they are hardly what anyone would call heavy 3D. The real world scenes actually take way more power to render.

So when someone says they render the Matrix in real time, I immediately think they are talking about the 3D rendered scenes, not the 2D photo composited scenes.

There is no way anyone can render a typical 3D industry scene in anything close to real time. NVidia likes to talk about doing Toy Story or Final Fantasy hack demos, but these are severely cut down in detail and shaders. Think ATI's Lord of the Rings Orc realtime army really is indistinguishable from the movie?

"Eon showed a concept preview of The Matrix. It was from the scene at the beginning of the movie, the hotel ambush. What we got was a city-top view of an animated figure running and jumping across rooftops, but you couldn't distinguish from the actual film. It was in real-time."

Uh huh, yeah right. Much like we couldn't distinguish the shots of a 3D rendered Neo in Matrix Reloaded from the filmed parts?

 

[Vince]

The "Trinity Scene" (jumping rooftops) is not done with CGI. It is a straight bluescreen effect. Most of the effects in the Matrix, with the exception of Neo touching the mirror, the bug in his stomach, and the real world sentinels, were done with traditional photography and compositing techniques.

Um, yeah... I know. Which is why I said it was an "interactive rendition" of the scene. Anyways, I wasn't trying to prove you wrong - I even said it was just an interesting factoid.

There is no way anyone can render a typical 3D industry scene in anything close to real time. NVidia likes to talk about doing Toy Story or Final Fantasy hack demos, but these are severely cut down in detail and shaders. Think ATI's Lord of the Rings Orc realtime army really is indistinguishable from the movie?

I wasn't talking about ATI or nVidia's offerings. Infact, I just had a discussion with Dave over this very topic after his comment about how ATI had a hand in rendering LoTR - which is obviously wrong. I completely agree with you on this.

Although, from what I've heard as I didn't see it in person, the GSCube actual rendered an early FF:TSW scene with Aki. I really don't know much of the GSCube (you can see just as much by googling) but this was interesting:

Criterion chief David Lau-Kee explained the incredible power of GScube to CVG today, and gave details on the company's SIGGRAPH demos

Those of a nervous disposition look away now. David Lau-Kee, President of PlayStation 2 middleware developer Criterion Studios, has confirmed astonishing details of the recent SIGGRAPH expo, including the company's real-time demo of the CG movie Antz.

"We showed a sequence from the Antz movie from PDI/Dreamworks, running in real-time, actual models and animation from the movie," he said. "It looked pretty damned cool: it was the bar fight scene from the movie, and you could navigate fully in 3D.

"In that specific demo, we had 140 fully animated 7,000 polygon ants inside a complex world which totalled over 1 million polys per frame at a sustained 60hz - about 65 million polys/sec. This is at HDTV resolution [1920 x 1080 x 60]. With some level-of-detail and other tricks, I guess we could drive 5-10 times that number of characters."

Uh huh, yeah right. Much like we couldn't distinguish the shots of a 3D rendered Neo in Matrix Reloaded from the filmed parts?

Again, you and I haven't seen it - so how can we comment? Of course it's not flawless, but thats beside the point. If anyone at SIGGRAPH saw it that posts here then perhaps we should wait for them to comment. I wonder if Faf or Archie saw it?

 

[Brimstone]

yawn...... i mean.... haven't we been through this like 1900000 times already?
why do we have to talk about the same things over and over again evertime someone finds a new article that explains what we already read in all the older articles?
this got boring straight after Panajev finished his overview on the Ps3 architecture. until we get some REAL info, or anything more than "PS3 will be more than a pure gaming machine" then we should just wait...
speculation is all nice and captivating but after reading the same thing over and over again with different words it gets boring.

Well, last time I heard this story from Sony was quite some time ago and I must say, I was not that all that sure about it. To hear it again from Kutaragi-san himself, seeing that they are able to stick to this complex plan, is remarkable.

Even more remarkable is point #9:

(pcostabel, thanx for the nice summary in usable english!!!)

Translation:

1) PS3 is not just a product but an architecture that will be implemented
in a line of products, form handhelds to supercomputers

2) PS3 software will not be tied to a specific implementation of the architecture (console, handheld) or a delivery media (DVD, Blue-ray).

3) PS3 software will be scalable, performing differently depending on the amount of computing power availeble, either locally or through the network.

4) CELL is designed to treat processing power available on the network the same way as it treats multiple local processors. Once bandwidth becomes available, remote CELLs will be able to operate together as if they were local.

5) CELL is Sony attempt to replace the x86 architecture as a standard ISA

6) IBM will use the CELL architecture in industrial applications to provide computing power on demand

7) In the future, a CELL based internet will allow the exchange of CELL applications (apulets) just like any other kind of data. Think Java without the need of a virtual machine.

8) Eventually, we will interact with other people on the net using some kind of virtual reality interface instead of having several incompatible systems,
(email, instant messaging, voice, webcams etc.)

9) To achieve these goals, Sony needs to solve several problems: network latency, scalability, hardware abstraction. <B><U>PS3 will work much like the original PS, with SCE providing high-level libraries to abstract the hardware for the applications</B></U>.

This is what Ken thinks. Whether or not he will be able to accomplish his dream remains to be seen.

This is the first time better developer support was semi-officially reinsured, maybe we'll see some more decent launch games and some less bitching developers after all

Point number 5 is my favorite.

5) CELL is Sony attempt to replace the x86 architecture as a standard ISA

Someone please point this out to Intels CEO or other top management.

I'll be surprised if Intel doesn't have a decent CPU in the Xbox 2. Why wrangle with Microsoft over cost when providing MS with something powerful will hamper IBM and Sony from achieving success with Cell?
Is Intel confident enough that even if the Playstation 3 has the same success as the Playstation 2, that Cell is no type of threat to Intels architectures?

 

[zurich]

I'm surprised the Emotion Engine never registered a blip on Intel's radars back when :?

 

[Vince]

I'm surprised the Emotion Engine never registered a blip on Intel's radars back when :?

Andy Grove has commented on Sony before; and Gabe Newell [former MS] has said something to the effect of, 'they [Sony] scared the shit out of Grove, they scared the shit out of Balmer and Gates' a few years back during the press when XBox was announced. I think it was in an interview with CGW.

Anyways, the EE is hardly a threat in itself, unlike the PlayStation name and reputation of PS2 that will allow future offerings to expand...

 

[zurich]

I'm surprised the Emotion Engine never registered a blip on Intel's radars back when :?

Andy Grove has commented on Sony before; and Gabe Newell [former MS] has said something to the effect of, 'they [Sony] scared the shit out of Grove, they scared the shit out of Balmer and Gates' a few years back during the press when XBox was announced. I think it was in an interview with CGW.

Anyways, the EE is hardly a threat in itself, unlike the PlayStation name and reputation of PS2 that will allow future offerings to expand...

Well, should people a few years from now be doing DV editing on their PS3s as opposed to their PCs (as it, according to Intel, is the 'killer app' ), then maybe then they'll be afraid

Seriously though, the best thing MS can do is to hype up the threat of Cell and its board implications to Intel in hopes of getting them as a full partner.

 

[chaphack]

I wont call things here technophobia or what, just healthy skepticism.

dreams are yaya without abilities, until we see more of cell, Kutaragi is just doing his same ol dreamy dreams(was a nightmare for him this generation). of which, i am sure he is not the only one with ideals of a wired up home.

I mean, for instance, would you go gaga over MS pre-released PR statement that Longhorn will be the MOST SECURE MOST HASSLE FREE MOST SPEEDY MOST blah blah blah OS EVER AND FOREVER!!!!!

 

[Paul]

(was a nightmare for him this generation).

Yea PS2 is in last place... oh but wait

This guys "dreamy dreams" is making sony billions of dollars and this "dreamer" most likely will be the one running Sony in a few years time.

 

[Deepak]

Why a few ridicule Ken K. constantly....he should be credited in transforming console industry into mainstream....turning into a high profile multi billion dollar industry.

 

[chaphack]

Yea PS2 is in last place... oh but wait

This guys "dreamy dreams" is making sony billions of dollars and this "dreamer" most likely will be the one running Sony in a few years time.

Yeah, but we are talking about tech specs necs, arent we?

Dreamy dreams are dreamy dreams, they are irrelevant to Sony money-money/no.1

 

[London Geezer]

I am utterly amazed that some posts get deleted and/or edited by moderators, while we still have to put up with the above.

 

[chaphack]

I did say hypothesis.

I think Paul's Sony is making money/no 1(like everyone knows that) is irrelevant on dreamy dreams.

You see, so what if Sony is making money? It is the dreamy dreams that we are interested in here. Lets say, fast forward 4yrs from now, Sony makes money from PS3/remains no.1, yet the dreamy dreams are fAr less than realized. As i said, dreams are yeay, but abilities are yeay yeay. Kutaragi never proved their dreams true before. Its fair that skeptics are allowed to he-hor on Ken's words now, instead accusing us of fear/ridcule Ken.

You see where i am coming from?

 

[London Geezer]

I did say hypothesis.

I think Paul's Sony is making money/no 1(like everyone knows that) is irrelevant on dreamy dreams.

You see, so what if Sony is making money? It is the dreamy dreams that we are interested in here. Lets say, fast forward 4yrs from now, Sony makes money from PS3/remains no.1, yet the dreamy dreams are fAr less than realized. As i said, dreams are yeay, but abilities are yeay yeay. Kutaragi never proved their dreams true before. Its fair that skeptics are allowed to he-hor on Ken's words now, instead accusing us of fear/ridcule Ken.

You see where i am coming from?

yawn... yeah chap i understand. still there are ways to get your point across. and that post i replied to was just wrong.

 

[chaphack]

Yeay, it does sounds a lil bad, i see if i can delete it.

 

[London Geezer]

Yeay, it does sounds a lil bad, i see if i can delete it.

wow i'm impressed with myself

 

[Paul]

Yeah, but we are talking about tech specs necs, arent we?

No?

Take a look at the topic title.

I think Paul's Sony is making money/no 1(like everyone knows that)

And I think your Microsoft stock is making money. Go sell.

It is the dreamy dreams that we are interested in here.

The dreamy dreams to make money, which is exactly what Kutaragi did for Sony. And it's exactly what's going to happen with PS3.

Sony makes money from PS3/remains no.1, yet the dreamy dreams are fAr less than realized.

Oh and let me guess, you have a time-machine and can see all this? You know nothing - zero - about what's going to happen with Kutaragi's vision, noone does; stop acting like you do.

 

[London Geezer]

Oh and let me guess, you have a time-machine and can see all this? You know nothing - zero - about what's going to happen with Kutaragi's vision, noone does; stop acting like you do.

mate... u know he's just gonna say: "oh well u don't know anything either so..." which is kinda right at the end of the day. oh he would do it with his wacky english though.

no point in counter attacking him like that, he's only gonna get more and more abusive...

 

[Paul]

Unlike him I don't claim Kutaragi's visions to not come true. So he has nothing against me, unless he pulls a "you don't know anything about PS3 either so STFU "

Heh another eye opener, everything we know about Cell and ps3 comes from things that have been said or things that are in the patent. So we are basing what we know off something, but he has nothing.

 

[London Geezer]

Unlike him I don't claim Kutaragi's visions to not come true. So he has nothing against me, unless he pulls a "you don't know anything about PS3 either so STFU "

Heh another eye opener, everything we know about Cell and ps3 comes from things that have been said or things that are in the patent. So we are basing what we know off something, but he has nothing.

YEAH... but thats not the point u see....... come on how long have u been here? u know how he is... just play nice...

 

[Paul]

Getting back on topic here.

1. I hope there is an official english translation of this article.

2. PS3 is right around the corner, seriously. Kutaragi talking about PS3 like this in a time where several key investements have been made about PS3's future(Think Cell mass production) leads me to believe that by march 2004 when Kutaragi says he will demo Cell tech he will unveil Cell's specs not unlike Emotion Engine. They of course will deny Cell for ps3, or say nothing is final. Than a few months later maybe in may or april at some event Kutaragi announces the full PS3 specs.

Afterall, if Cell is going into mass production in early 2004.. he will have to reveal the specs on it before that time.