@MikeB

Quote:

Sure, Motorstorm is mostly compressed 2:1 ratio, still the game won't fit on a DVD.

Use procedural synthesis and 2:1 is quite laughable a ratio. Motorstorm's rock and sand textures as well as the car panel textures are especially suited for this method.

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@AMiGR

Procedural synthesis has nothing to do with compression. It's a different way of writing game code, which introducing its own disadvantages and weakpoints.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation

Japanese video game hardware sales for last week:

1. DSL - 133,325 (+22,480) - 2,173,415 - 9,623,299
2. WII - 75,759 (+23,176) - 1,170,417 - 2,090,060
3. PSP - 24,850 (-6,653) - 740,904 - 5,273,033
4. PS2 - 12,872 (-1,362) - 285,807 - 20,440,666
5. PS3 - 11,948 (-2,572) - 380,291 - 837,849
6. 360 - 2,900 (-63) - 84,876 - 349,578
7. GBASP - 654 (-179) - 14,691 - 5,933,641
8. GBM - 617 (+105) - 16,981 - 576,861
9. NGC - 167 (-88) - 5,936 - 4,175,404
10. NDS - 146 (+56) - 1,742 - 6,583,999
11. GBA - 26 (+14) - 523 - 8,823,729

At this rate, the 360 may start to outsell the PS3 in a month or two on a weekly basis in JAPAN!

Software top 10:

01. NDS - Phoenix Wright 4 - Capcom - 250,186 - NEW
02. NDS - Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis - Nintendo - 92,017 - NEW
03. Wii - Wii Sports - Nintendo - 41,035 (1,356,966) - 20th week
04. NDS - Yoshi's Island DS - Nintendo - 40,974 (670,432) - 6th week
05. Wii - Wii Play - Nintendo - 28,394 (1,147,811) - 20th week
06. NDS - Prof. Layton and the Mysterious Village - Level 5 - 25,548 (417,682) - 19th week
07. NDS - More English Training - Nintendo - 25,264 (109,909) - 3rd week
08. PS2 - Musou Orochi - Koei - 23,067 (538,869) - 4th week
09. PS2 - Pro Baseball Spirits 4 - Konami - 19,816 (101,868) - 3rd week
10. NDS - My Relakkuma - Rocket Company - 18,734 - NEW

As Wii Sports wasn't a pack-in in Japan, it seems half the users by Wii Sports and half buy Wii Play when they buy the system and some just buy both...on the average.

Note: next week is a holiday week for Japan and is usually one of the biggest video game purchasing weeks of the year. We'll see if Nintendo has stockpiled any units...

@MikeB

I know what procedural synthesis is, thank you very much. It is the process of generating data algorithmically. Using procedural synthesis tools, like Farbrausch's for instance, the artist creates textures and objects but the format they get stored in does not store the result but the actual steps required to build the data from scratch. Take a look at Farbrausch's website and if you have a PC handy, try .kkrieger and the toolkit. It's not "a different way of writing game code". It's a different way of producing and storing data. Yes, it has *tons* to do with data compression.

It has its weaknesses, yes, but as I said, rock, sand and car textures are *incredibly* well suited for procedural synthesis.

Do some more research on this.

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@MikeB

Quote:

Procedural synthesis has nothing to do with compression. It's a different way of writing game code, which introducing its own disadvantages and weakpoints.

Don't know what to say except you're wrong. With procedural analysis the textures are data which is generated during playtime. You need to do more research and education on how this works. RoboBlitz is one game that's had a bit of press. Without procedural analysis you wouldn't get the details and textures in this 19 level game to be under 50MB, which is what they achevied.

"Textures are the majority of the budget for most 3D games. As soon as we replaced our big library of textures with procedural equivalents, we cut our footprint to below 1/20 its original size" said Joshua Glazer, Naked Sky's CTO.
...
Epic Game's Unreal Engine 3 uses very large textures which make the 50MB requirement essentially impossible to meet with traditional technologies. ProFX solves this problem by letting artists paint textures procedurally. Those textures remain procedural, even if the artist erases, moves, stretches, colors, or otherwise edits any piece of the texture.
..
Allegorithmic's ProFX enables the generation of textures of any resolution from source files averaging only 1KB per material. The ProFX middleware is based on patented technology for fully-editable, procedural texture maps and allows texture artists to design hi-quality, next-generation materials (diffuse maps, specular maps, normal maps, etc.) limited only by their imaginations.

--- 1/20th? So the 50MB game would be 1000MB or ~ 1GB if procedural texturing wasn't used. So YES there's obviously compression going on.

Now add onto this something the PS3 lacks. The Xenon's VMX-128 bit instruction which are geared directly towards (surprise) accelerating procedural analysis by doing a single step 3D dot product to generate game vertices and textures.

@MikeB

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation

Guess you didn't read to the bottom of the page you quoted huh?


Check under Software using procedural generation and you will find
Dozens of demos procedurally generate complex textures...
SpeedTree is a widely known middleware to procedurally generate trees...
Filter Forge is an Adobe Photoshop plugin for designing procedural textures..
RoboBlitz for XBox360 live arcade and PC (Textures generated on the fly...

Here's another wikipedia link you may want to read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texture_synthesis

Last edited by BrianK on 20-Apr-2007 at 08:31 PM.

@AMiGR

I think it's funny you claim I should do some more research. Some keypoints:

"We do .not. have some kind of magical data compression machine that is able to squeeze hundreds of megabytes of mesh/texture and sound data into 96k."

"at some expense in artistic freedom and loading times"

"Some initial approaches to procedural synthesis attempted to solve these problems by shifting the burden of content generation from the artists to programmers who can create code which automatically generates different meshes according to input parameters.

"Instead of writing a procedure that completely builds content procedurally, it has been proven to be much cheaper and more effective to rely on artist created content for some details."

Although I agree especially the Cell's SPEs could make some interesting use of procedural synthesis techniques, it's not some kind of "do it all" magic, rather techniques you could strategically implement in games. Such techniques are great for creating random varierty, great if you have very limited available system memory, etc. Compare this to early vector based non-hand drawn, but instead calculated game graphics (shapes), the possible randomess or diversity of complex fractals or other effects for instance used in many Amiga demos.

Losless data compression is not really related to these programming / design techniques, so please don't use such techniques to diss Motorstorm's or Resistance's need for storage (or Lair, MGS, Killzone, etc)..

Last edited by MikeB on 20-Apr-2007 at 10:21 PM.
Last edited by MikeB on 20-Apr-2007 at 09:02 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

I think it's funny you claim I should do some more research. Some keypoints:

It's funny that you fail to understand what you are reading.

Quote:

"We do .not. have some kind of magical data compression machine that is able to squeeze hundreds of megabytes of mesh/texture and sound data into 96k."

As I said, it's an alternative way of producing, storing and reproducing data. It is not a compression algorithm but it has all to do with data compression, which is what I said in the first place.

Quote:

"at some expense in artistic freedom and loading times"

The artistic limitation is that the tools are not even remotely as many and comprehensive as traditional tools.

Quote:

"Some initial approaches to procedural synthesis attempted to solve these problems by shifting the burden of content generation from the artists to programmers who can create code which automatically generates different meshes according to input parameters.

Underline the first three words and you will get the point of the paragraph you have quoted.

Quote:

"Instead of writing a procedure that completely builds content procedurally, it has been proven to be much cheaper and more effective to rely on artist created content for some details."

Read the whole article when quoting, this is pretty much what speedtree does, procedurally generates the trees and fills them with artistically created leaves.

However, with Farbrausch's tools you can *artistically* create procedurally generated textures and models without ever touching a single line of code. Same with ProFX, which is actually used on the XBox360 (and prolly PS3 as well, as it's an UnrealEngine3 middleware engine).

Quote:

Although I agree especially the Cell's SPEs could make some interesting use of procedural synthesis techniques, it's not some kind of "do it all" magic, rather techniques you could strategically implement in games. Such techniques are great for creating random varierty, great if you have very limited available system memory, etc. Compare this to early vector based non-hand drawn, but instead calculated game graphics (shapes), the randomess of complex fractals or other effects for instance used in many Amiga demos.

You are talking about the past and did not really get the point of it at all. This has nothing to do with conservation of system memory, it relies on the fact that the systems today are powerful enough to dynamically generate most data they use if they know how.

Quote:

Losless data compression is not really related to these programming / design techniques,

They are not just *programming* techniques anymore, stop only reading the things that concur with your already established point of view out of the articles you read.

Check ProFX out. It's a middleware engine that creates textures on the fly.

Quote:

so please don't use such techniques to diss Motorstorm's or Resistance's need for storage (or Lair, MGS, Killzone, etc)..

I am not dissing it, I am stating plain facts. Why on earth do you think everyone has been investing in research in this area and Microsoft included things to speed it up on the 360 if it's irrelevant?

You must realise that the games industry will not be able to indefinitely hire more and more artists. Eventually they will have to resort to other means. With procedural generation, you can not only hold more data in less space but also create far more variety from the same data. The artist will define a tileset that looks like something. The engine will then generate that for the entire level with all attributes that may be needed, to have a stain here, wear and tear marks there, aged parts there, etc.

Last edited by AMiGR on 20-Apr-2007 at 10:36 PM.
Last edited by AMiGR on 20-Apr-2007 at 10:31 PM.

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@AMiGR

Quote:

As I said, it's an alternative way of producing, storing and reproducing data. It is not a compression algorithm but it has all to do with data compression, which is what I said in the first place.

No, data compression and programming techniques which result in compact code are two different things.

Quote:

Check ProFX out. It's a middleware engine that creates textures on the fly

Yes, the Cell is very powerful at rendering in real-time. But if you want that image, it's much easier to just take a picture in a very high resolution and use that, instead of trying to realize the same 1080p image in just code.

Look the PS3 should be much more powerful at this than the XBox 360, but IMO we will have to be realistic with regard to the practical uses, they are not endless, it doesn't mean Motorstorm could suddenly fit on a diskette, CD or DVD without making any sacrifices compared to what the developers really envisioned for their game.

@MikeB

Quote:

No, data compression and programming techniques which result in compact code are two different things.

My god Mike, are you actually reading a word I write at all?

It's *not* just a programming technique anymore, you open up a special image editor for instance or a special 3D modeller and create the same textures and models you would otherwise.

Moreover, it never produced "compact code", it always produced compact data.

It does not classify as data compression as such, but what happens is the following:

With traditional methods, you generate artistic assets using some tools, be them Photoshop or whatever. Those tools draw some primitives and apply effects on them or on an original image.
The tool then saves the final result as a set of pixels.
With procedural synthesis, you still draw some primitives and apply effects on them, only the tool does not save the final result, it saves what the primitives are, where they are and what you applied to them and how. The middleware then reads that data and generates the image.

Provided that the tools used are good, you end up with the same result at a tiny fraction of the size, with the ability to destroy/age/whatever the assets created algorithmically in real time.

Quote:

Yes, the Cell is very powerful at rendering in real-time. But if you want that image, it's much easier to just take a picture in a very high resolution and use that, instead of trying to realize the same 1080p image in just code.

You do not try to realise any image with just code, which you would know if you had:
1) Read my post.
2) Read my links.

Those days are ancient history. You create the same very high resolution image in a special image editor and that editor saves your actions instead of the final result and then the middleware recreates it on the target.

Quote:

Look the PS3 should be much more powerful at this than the XBox 360,

The XBox360 was built with this in mind so that remains to be seen.

Quote:

but IMO we will have to be realistic with regard to the practical uses, they are not endless, it doesn't mean Motorstorm could suddenly fit on a diskette, CD or DVD without making any sacrifices compared to what the developers really envisioned for their game.

You mean, the practical uses as shown by ProFX and Farbrausch? Yes, it *would* make Motorstorm fit on a DVD, it would just add another layer of middleware for the data generation and would make the artists' jobs a lot harder in some regards and a lot easier in others. This is the third time I state this: Sand, rock and metal parts are a dream for procedural generation.

Since you like quotes, there are a few I can find:

From ProFX
Quote:

Flexibility The ProFX texture editor, Map Zone, lets the artist draw what he wants, instead of forcing him to randomize and hope.

Quote:

Shipping Size ProFX textures are tiny, typically a few kilobytes.

Quote:

Marketing Shoot your cinematics from any angle, or get high resolution shots for print ads, without ever worrying again whether your textures were authored at the right resolution.

... Since you can just regenerate them at a higher resolution.

Oh, and I see that will support the PS3 indeed: Tech specs.
Why am I certain that we're gonna hear how great this technology is as soon as it hits a major PS3 game?

From Farbrausch.

Quote:

e want to create a computer graphics content creation system that: combines textures, materials, meshes, scene management, lighting, animation, composing and everything else you need to create 3D computer graphics in one tool. does this within a procedural and modular framework. is able to import data from other tools where procedural approaches won't cut it. is highly productive for the trained artist. integrates aspects needed for game development, like AI and interaction. integrates sound and music. scales to large worlds.

Last edited by AMiGR on 20-Apr-2007 at 11:15 PM.
Last edited by AMiGR on 20-Apr-2007 at 11:04 PM.

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@AMiGR

Quote:

The XBox360 was built with this in mind so that remains to be seen

The SPEs are more powerful with regard to calculating data and there's more bandwidth between the Cell => RSX.

@MikeB

Quote:

The SPEs are more powerful with regard to calculating data and there's more bandwidth between the Cell => RSX.

This is so vague it is a quite useless statement: Calculate data? Do what calculations? On what kind of data? Do you have any benchmarks of the SPEs doing precisely the calculations needed vs the XBox360's 3 dual threaded VMX128 units?

How can you possibly be claiming that something you do not know is faster than something you do not know when doing something you do not know?

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@MikeB

Quote:

The SPEs are more powerful with regard to calculating data and there's more bandwidth between the Cell => RSX.

MikeB seriously go back to your Wikipedia article and at the bottom click on procedural textures and read that. Then click on various links there and read some more.

What you're not understanding here is the Xenon is setup to do a single cycle dot product. By doing this the Xenon speeds up the processing of procedural synthesis. The Cell cannot do this. Instead it must do it in software emulation by using multiple instructions.

While I haven't seen speeds for the SPEs to do such a calculation I'd have to believe it is slower. Why? Floating point is claimed to be 2x on the PS3. Yet multiple instructions are needed to carry this out. It may well be this requirement for multiple passes more then offsets the 2 fold advantage.

@BrianK

Dunno about that, depends on how they do it and how the use the SPUs. Without more information I cannot possibly say that one or the other is faster for sure.

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@AMiGR

For performance on this one item I'd bet on the Xenon. Having the PS3 do this in multiple passes shows us how Microsoft gains, in this case, by sheer efficencies. Now we well know this is but part of a whole game so don't you all go thinking this means the 360 will always beat the PS3.

Here's another read I'm sure MikeB will take it up immediately.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-1.ars/2

Note to MikeB see bottom of the page this involves compression..
Microsoft refers to this ratio of stored scene data to rendered vertex data as a compression ratio, the idea being that main memory stores a "compressed" version of the scene, while the GPU renders a "decompressed" version of the scene.

Last edited by BrianK on 21-Apr-2007 at 01:25 AM.

@BrianK

Also, I'm looking at this right now, it's the 360 Elite motherboard. It seems to have a far less beefy power circuit, smaller capacitors in the 3-phase buck converter on the right and it seems to be missing a switching transistor per phase, I'm not experienced enough to know the exact topology of their power supply but I would guess that something is using less power. Also, the inductors at the other power circuits at the bottom of the board seem to be smaller as well.

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@AMiGR

There's more than 100 GFLOPSs worth of performance difference between the PS3 Cell and Xenon for running their GameOS together with games, the PS3 Cell can do this in 9 threads (although if needed more are possible) and the Xenon does this in 6.

The performance gap is so obvious, I am really surprised this needs to be discussed.

Procedural synthesis is nothing new, I find it funny that one of the PS3 strongpoints probably due to Microsoft marketing gets turned against it to demonstrate a higher capacity drive wouldn't be needed instead of demonstrating that the amount of system memory present is more than sufficient for the coming years.

Procedural synthesis can find interesting uses for games, but will not completely negate other game design methods. I find it funny for Amigans who know so much about the demoscene to finally "rediscover" procedural synthetical programming methods mainly when Microsoft starts to talk about this.

Last edited by MikeB on 21-Apr-2007 at 11:42 PM.
Last edited by MikeB on 21-Apr-2007 at 04:11 PM.
Last edited by MikeB on 21-Apr-2007 at 12:21 PM.

MikeB wrote:

Quote:

The PS3 takes the number 1 spot of T3 magazine's Hot 100 list

Another award for the PS3:

Sony has received this year's Product of the Year RAVE award, given out by Home Theatre Magazine

I just a review of Fear for the ps3. The graphics are apparently pretty much identical to the xbox 360 version, but the framerate stutters alot on the ps3 version! So that is yet another game that just runs better on the xbox 360, even though the ps3 is supposed to be way more powerful according to Sony.

A new interview with the makers of Oblivion:

"How many processors were implimented throughout Oblivion and were you able to accomplish anything special using the Cell Processor?

At the end of the day the PS3 is simply a different machine that handles data in a different way than 360. So we take advantage of the machine’s capabilities to run our games as fast and as efficiently as possible. I don’t know how many processors we used or didn’t use."

IMO this sounds dishonest, surely they know how many SPEs they've used for their game, but simply don't want to point this out to the readers. My personaly guess would be they used one SPE for this game, nothing to be ashamed of considering their engine wasn't really build with the PS3 in mind.

"The PC version requires at least 512 ram, how did you get around this while developing it for the Playstation 3?

Well, part of it is that the PC is running an operating system that has its own requirements that we have to add to our own. Otherwise, being able to cache down certain info to the hard drive and stream things off of the disc and the drive is a big help. Obviously, we used a lot of the memory management tools we developed in making sure it ran and played well on the PS3 as well."

In line with my previous comments.

Thanks to Bethesda for doing a quality port of IMO most likely the XBox 360's best overall game to the PS3.