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[mashoutposse]

Heavenly Swords:

According to a coder on the team, the E3 footage is generated straight from their engine @ 1080p (frames were assembled after the fact to ensure a smooth framerate). He states that he fully expects the team to get the final game running @ 30+fps at that resolution (!).

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22971&start=80&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

Hold on DeanoC. You wrote it. So tell us thousands of guys one thing. Is what we seen tonight in real-time or CGI?

The trailer was made by selecting a bunch of in-game moves/cool things, Then those frames making up those bits were output at 1080p from the engine. These are then all stuck together in a editing and post-processing package to look like a movie trailer.

But fundementally the 'renderer' itself was in-game, so you can see the shadow issues in certain frame where the in-game shadow map resolution optimiser doesn't do its job.

So in all fairness its not quite as black and white as either real-time or CGI...

Ahh, the question is, how many FPS @ 1080p :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: I assume it's < realtime. (10fps?)

If you split the demo into 2 sections (interior and exterior), the interior runs real-time quite happily at 1080p. The exterior struggles a bit but more because we just kept adding more and more till it looked right without going through various optimisation passes then anything else (i.e. the flags are really expensive at the moment due to a quick implementation).

there is still lots of optimization left.

Without saying anything regarding hardware etc. I will say everything you see is still early and we expect it to run alot better in future...

Deano, can you honestly tell me that all those soldiers running around have their own AI and animations and such? :shock:

Yep, they are simplified entities but still have basic AI (they can avoid things, stay in formation etc., they try and jump out of the way of the boozaka if you look carefully...) and use the normal animaton system, they are even the same models, the LOD system handles it transparently. They also turn into Havok ragdolls for a decent death.

Currently they are all on a single processor core, so the framerate drops pretty sharply at high number of entities... but this should go away once we have had a chance to work the machine properly...

So the final product will be an 1080p game? Running at a high target FPS?

Will it use HDR?

Sony asked for 1080p for the trailer, so we provided it... Assuming all things being equal I can't see why the final game wouldn't...

FPS I'll be really disappointed if we can't keep a steady 30 at worse and would prefer 60 but given time scales 60 may not be possible (I'm personally fussy about framerate so I'll try for a steady 60fps)

HDR is bread and butter for us, something like 2 years old tech. Originally 16 bit integer (back in the ATI 9800 days) now FP16 based. X360 has a nice 32 bit float mode (FP10) but I expect that will be quite hard to use for proper HDR (never got a chance to use it so can't really comment), considering we have actually hit precision issues with FP16 framebuffers (64 bit). FP16 seems to be the best comprimise for a framebuffer at the moment (its enough for most lighting, though we run out of precision directly in front of the sun (noticeable on our cloud renderer))

So DeanoC once you guys start to multithread, what advantages do you think the game will have? Will it improve graphics, physics, AI, etc.?

Graphics and framerate are the low hanging fruit. Just threading up the animation system and procedural graphics (hair, cloth, flags etc.) will gives us a large amount of CPU time back for the game. The army need this the most.

Longer term, Physics and AI services are obvious candidates.

As for what improves?, thats a good question. The priority is to move the heavy weight stuff off the main game thread, hopefully doing this will provide lots more time for the game code. That should improve the gameplay in lots of ways.

Wether we will acheive all this and keep the code easy to develop with is the big question. Lots of designers and coders (especially the more junior members of the team) aren't used to dealing with threads, DMA and C like code. Keeping a balance between the high level and the harder stuff is the biggest challenge. I don't want a level designer having to worry about threads but at the same time don't want him/her coding in such a way that its totally serialised...

DEANOC... Are you saying that the battlefield view with hundreds of soldiers is realtime (and you guys are targeting 1080p @ 30fps+)? Like this amazing screenshot:

http://www.ninjatheory.com/blinkblink/images/stories/hsscreens/hs_e3-2005_08.jpg

Its in-engine but I'd be lieing to say its very playable at the moment BUT we have lots of work to do in this area. There is something like 2000 people on screen there, we have shown 500 people @ 30fps on our old PC demo (GDC2004 time). Were not currently as efficient as we were back when we did the last demo, a new more advanced shadow system and a few other changes make each bloke a bit more expensive. To be honest though, we knew we were about the change to the target platform when we made those changes so optimising for a PC engine was a bit pointless. Given the power and architecture of the target platform, it seems achievable (if a bit hard ;-) )

Also, will we be seeing motion blur effects on par with what's in that picture (not the fake BS we've had to deal with this gen)?

Actually Wil (one of the coders) has done some research work on achieving that kind of depth of field and motion blur in-engine since we finished the E3 demo. Its still being worked on but it looked pretty good last time I saw it. He's calculating per-pixel velocity vectors so you actually get smearing and blurring along the movement axis...

Thanks for answering our questions; great to finally interact with someone so down-to-earth.

No problem, sometimes I can't answer or have to be quiet obtuse but thats the nature of the business...

PS3 is starting to sound beastly again...

 

[jimbo]

It all just sounds so shady. I'll wait until I see gameplay stuff to make my final judgement. We still got a good while to wait before we will find out what these systems cand do. I've come to the conclusion, that neither one of these companies were ready for E3.

 

[MattCoz]

again? it stopped soundly beastly at some point?

 

[akascream]

It boggles my mind that anything below 60fps is even a possibility. First Rare on Xbox360, now this game on the PS3.


Fucking. mind. boggling.

 

[mashoutposse]

again? it stopped soundly beastly at some point?

Its beastliness was up in the air after the doubt that arose surrounding the origins of demos like this one.

It boggles my mind that anything below 60fps is even a possibility. First Rare on Xbox360, now this game on the PS3.


Fucking. mind. boggling.

That's definitely true at lower resolutions. At 1080p, however, I'm surprised the game even runs...

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

Thanks for putting it all together.


PS:

Why can't people spell?


Lie>Lied>Lied====>Lying

Lie>Lay>Lain====>Lying

 

[mashoutposse]

BTW, here's a link to the video:

http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/700/...4/614848/sonycon_games_12_heavenly_wmvlow.wmv

 

[jedimike]

PS3 is starting to sound beastly again...

When did it not sound beastly? The whole argument from both sides has been about whether PS3 is really twice as powerful as 360.

Personally, twice as powerful doesn't even translate... I mean show me a game that looks 2X as good as another. WTF is twice as good??? How can you say that this picture looks twice as good as another? Nobody knows...

 

[human5892]

It boggles my mind that anything below 60fps is even a possibility. First Rare on Xbox360, now this game on the PS3.


Fucking. mind. boggling.

We'll always have a wide variety of FPS in games, until we reach the point of rendering where graphics are so true-to-life that adding anything else on screen would be irrelevant. Until then, there will always be a tradeoff between more detail and speed.

 

[Nerevar]

That's definitely true at lower resolutions. At 1080p, however, I'm surprised the game even runs...

My CPU even has trouble decoding a full 1920x1080 trailer.

 

[dark10x]

It boggles my mind that anything below 60fps is even a possibility. First Rare on Xbox360, now this game on the PS3.


Fucking. mind. boggling.

First Rare? There was talk at one point that most developers were only shooting for 30 fps on XBOX360...

 

[seismologist]

Also, will we be seeing motion blur effects on par with what's in that picture (not the fake BS we've had to deal with this gen)?


Actually Wil (one of the coders) has done some research work on achieving that kind of depth of field and motion blur in-engine since we finished the E3 demo

It does sound kind of shady. How does the motion blur look so good in this trailer if it was using the in-game renderer?

 

[mashoutposse]

My CPU even has trouble decoding a full 1920x1080 trailer.

:lol I'm sayin'!

If you told me three days ago that we would be playing next-gen games at 1080p in realtime gameplay (not just cutscenes or Blu-Ray movies), I wouldn't have believed you. Heck, I thought 720p @ 60fps would be a somewhat tall order.

 

[Elios83]

I think Heavenly Sword is the most interesting original game Sony has showed at the conference along with Motor Storm.
SCEE seems the most prepared Sony division for next gen development currently.

 

[dorio]

I wish we could get past the fanboy rants and marvel at the incredible work these companies are doing. Seems like the biggest issue this gen will be developers getting accustom to multi-threading. When they do that then that's when things will really take off. It also looks like no matter the hardware power some developers will try to find ways to push it even if it means 30fps. If they have it running at 60fps they'll probably throwing more npcs etc. to get it down to 30 if its not a racing game.

 

[PhatSaqs]

This game looks fuckin awesome.

 

[teiresias]

I really liked this "trailer" for two reasons. One, it looked more in-game than anything else, and two, it had me drooling over the prospects for a "God of War" sequel on PS3.

However, one thing I don't like about it (and this is a complaint I have about alot of games actually) is that in the beginning when you see close-up combat I have no sense of scale. To my eyes, it looks like miniature little action figures running around fighting, my sense of scale doesn't say to me these are full-sized people - maybe it's just me. I get that impression from alot of 3rd person games for some reason.

 

[Borys]

In my slightly biased opinion HS looks miles better than Kameo and a whole lot of better than 99 Nights.

All based on trailers (Kameo - 720p) and screens I saw.

 

[bigfurb]

It does sound kind of shady. How does the motion blur look so good in this trailer if it was using the in-game renderer?

The trailer was made by selecting a bunch of in-game moves/cool things, Then those frames making up those bits were output at 1080p from the engine. These are then all stuck together in a editing and post-processing package to look like a movie trailer

Reading is fundamental

 

[DarienA]

I think Heavenly Sword is the most interesting original game Sony has showed at the conference along with Motor Storm.
SCEE seems the most prepared Sony division for next gen development currently.

and with that in mind it'll be interesting to see if SCEE and SCEA have resolved their differences... hell Stringer should just force them to get on the same damn page.

 

[mashoutposse]

Teir: That might be due to the slightly higher point of view. If the camera was more level with the ground, as with most fighters, the scale would look more 'correct.' It's almost the same thing with 3rd person views in racing games.

 

[SolidSnakex]

SCEE has slipped this gen compared to last gen when SCEA would publish basically everything they released. They're really 3rd in line this gen compared to last gen when they were considered by alot of people to be Sony's best division.

 

[Slurpy]

I have a hard time believing those screenshots will be playable @ a nice framerate @ 1080p next year. If so, then.. wow.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

Hard to tell from those small screens (haven't seen any other media for the game), but this a great indication of what a nextgen DW/Kessen game would look like.

 

[fortified_concept]

It boggles my mind that anything below 60fps is even a possibility. First Rare on Xbox360, now this game on the PS3.


Fucking. mind. boggling.

At 1080p? And with these kind of graphics? On the contrary you should be quite impressed.

 

[SKluck]

The line about post processing worries me. The only thing I think you could take away from this is the models and poly counts will be equal or surpassed on PS3. But overall look, it's too difficult to tell, you can do a lot in "post".

 

[mashoutposse]

Link to full-size pics of the above (1920x1080):

http://www.ninjatheory.com/blinkblink/images/stories/hsscreens/hs_e3-2005_08.jpg

http://www.ninjatheory.com/blinkblink/images/stories/hsscreens/hs_e3-2005_09.jpg

 

[teiresias]

I want a Final Fantasy Tactics game with full-blown strategic army battles on PS3 dammit!!!

 

[Phoenix]

It boggles my mind that anything below 60fps is even a possibility. First Rare on Xbox360, now this game on the PS3.


Fucking. mind. boggling.

2 years ago I was writing shader programs on nVidia hardware and gave up because I couldn't maintain 10-15FPS on scenes not even approaching this level of detail and CERTAINLY not at 1080p resolution. If they can pull off 30FPS at 1080p that speaks highly for the capability of the machine, particularly the RSX.

 

[akascream]

If 60fps is not maintainable at 1080p, then don't run your game in that resolution. It seems especially ridiculous given the number of tvs on the market that even support that res.

First Rare? There was talk at one point that most developers were only shooting for 30 fps on XBOX360...

Really?... that so blows. Which is even worse than problems at 1080p, since Xbox360 games are at 720p.


Fuck this gen.

 

[Lazy8s]

DeanoC:

X360 has a nice 32 bit float mode (FP10) but I expect that will be quite hard to use for proper HDR (never got a chance to use it so can't really comment), considering we have actually hit precision issues with FP16 framebuffers (64 bit). FP16 seems to be the best comprimise for a framebuffer at the moment (its enough for most lighting, though we run out of precision directly in front of the sun (noticeable on our cloud renderer))

PS3 seems to have a nice advantage in HDR over X360, but DeanoC's disclosure supports the assumption that PS3's advertised 128-bit precision might not be so practical and might also be a trade-off between color and AA.

 

[mashoutposse]

DeanoC:

PS3 seems to have a nice advantage in HDR over X360, but DeanoC's disclosure supports the assumption that PS3's advertised 128-bit precision might not be so practical and might also be a trade-off between color and AA.

It's... you.





What's good, bro?

 

[Mrbob]

In my slightly biased opinion HS looks miles better than Kameo and a whole lot of better than 99 Nights.

All based on trailers (Kameo - 720p) and screens I saw.

Same here. I think that HS demo blows away the 99 Nights demo.

 

[demon]

If the 99 Nights "demo" you're talking about is the original trailer, then I disrespectfully disagree. That looked fucking amazing. As does this.

 

[Lazy8s]

mashoutposse:

What's good, bro?

High AA is too bandwidth intensive to be worked across a bus in external memory and too memory intensive to share framebuffer RAM with high HDR color. X360 graphics solve only part of this by making the scene manageable more at the device level in high bandwidth chip areas with embedded memory, but framebuffer dependencies still conflict on RAM space.

To mimimize framebuffer dependencies, sampling for AA and blending for color can't become framebuffer requirements. The final image has to be identified before writing out to the framebuffer, so visible surface determination should be more device-driven as well in order to be practical. Deferred rendering with display lists would allow complete determination of the final scene before write-out, so high AA and acceptable color would be possible together without contending for framebuffer memory. Tile-based display list rendering in the vein of PowerVR does that.

 

[The Faceless Master]

i love how the entire longass first post can be summed up in a simple line

"yes its prerendered, but the real game will look better... really"

 

[pcostabel]

i love how the entire longass first post can be summed up in a simple line

"yes its prerendered, but the real game will look better... really"

Reading comprehension is your friend.

 

[Zaptruder]

i love how the entire longass first post can be summed up in a simple line

"yes its prerendered, but the real game will look better... really"

Actually, it's better and more accurately summed up as:

It was mainly rendered with the PS3, with some areas using a post processing renderer. The interior can be done in real time already, though the exterior isn't quite upto that level of optimization.

I know, it's not quite as catchy, but if you're one that deals with complexities by summing them up into neat little catchphrase packages, then you need to be shot and buried.

 

[Pimpwerx]

You know, reading some of the stuff today, I realize it's definitely new system time. This is 1999 all over again. PEACE.