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[Frostman007]

This is why, while the console was challenging to develop for, I love the open hardware design of the PlayStation 2.

Here we are approaching the tail-end of the console's lifespan, but the developers keep coming up with new tricks in order to pull of some impressive in-game effects.

The following link (to an ppt file) is from Tri-Ace's website and details all the impressive lighting and shadow effects that the group has been able to pull of on the PS2. It's long, but certainly an interesting read. It just goes to show you what sort of things are possible if you manage to put together a smart and creative team.

GDC 2005 - Full Length Presentation

 

[Stinkles]

pS2 suXorz.



Note: The presentation above is a LARGE PPowerpoint, not a vid.

 

[mrklaw]

nice. Just shows what you can do with a little imagination, a shit load of fillrate, and a couple of vector processors.

Makes me really look forward to PS3. Yes, you'll get pixel shaders to play with, but all those SPEs could do some really good stuff.

 

[olimario]

That was really interesting to look through.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

The technical stuff went over my head, but I like the pretty pictures!

 

[dark10x]

Looks interesting. I'll have to read through some of it later.

 

[jiggle]

Don't have powerpoint.

What kind of images are in the presentations? Anything related to their games?

 

[Forsete]

Don't have powerpoint.

Download this, you should be able to view the file.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...27-43ab-4f24-90b7-a94784af71a4&displaylang=en

 

[rod]

jiggle you need to make your avatar psp friendly as in wallpaper friendly

 

[Borys]

There's some nice math (Fourier chains), physics (lens equations for DOF) in there and some pictures of primitive objects (like 2 boxes) lit with a nice global illumination system. Oh, and a bunch of ASM code (I assume it's PS2 ASM) too.

Will this be ever used in PS2 games? I don't think so (too late).

 

[jiggle]

Download this, you should be able to view the file.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...27-43ab-4f24-90b7-a94784af71a4&displaylang=en

thanks

jiggle you need to make your avatar psp friendly as in wallpaper friendly

here ya go:

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

jiggle, you use photoshop or something to reduce the image to 300 x 170? I have the PSP 1.5 model and like to keep it that way, but I tried reducing pixels in some of the simple imaging programs on the my computer but it just makes thing pixelated like crazy.

 

[olimario]

I love that art. Do you have it in full wallpaper size? 1024 or 1280?

 

[rod]

jigga thank you very much kind sir

 

[dark10x]

We've already seen some pretty high quality lighting on the PS2. I really think MGS3 did a fantastic job with similar effects...

 

[_bla_]

This is why, while the console was challenging to develop for, I love the open hardware design of the PlayStation 2.

Almost all the effects presented in the paper are possible on pretty much every hardware since the Geforce, very likely even on ancient voodoo hardware. The only presented that really profits from the special PS2 hardware design is SH Lighting. The vector units are basically used as very flexible vertex shader, that was clearly a clever thing from sony to include them instead of a inflexible fixed function t&l pipeline.
Most of the effects are very nice and clever programming, it shows what developers can do when they really try to push the envelope, but it doesn't show anything like a "open hardware design".

Will this be ever used in PS2 games? I don't think so (too late).

I believe all of it was used in Star Ocean 3. I'm sure that I have seen Depth of Field and SH Lighting in it and pretty sure that I have seen the other effects as well. Screenshots from Radiata Stories had DOF too.

 

[dark10x]

Depth of field is super common on PS2, though. Tons of games use it (even the system menu does). I think this PPT refers to a more accurate DOF effect or something (didn't read it yet, just glanced).

 

[Borys]

I believe all of it was used in Star Ocean 3. I'm sure that I have seen Depth of Field and SH Lighting in it and pretty sure that I have seen the other effects as well. Screenshots from Radiata Stories had DOF too.

and dark10x

Yeah I know, DOF and distortion effects are supercommon, I was thinking about that GI system with surfaces reflecting light and colors on other surfaces. That's not likely to end in a full-fledged game and not a tech demo.

And ALL this can be achieved on ancient CPUs even. Software rendering @ 1 frame per 30 days that is

 

[_bla_]

Yeah I know, DOF and distortion effects are supercommon, I was thinking about that GI system with surfaces reflecting light and colors on other surfaces. That's not likely to end in a full-fledged game and not a tech demo.

That GI system is perfectly possible. They precalcute the lighting and save them using a special compression. A special vertex shader decompresses the compressed lighting information.

And ALL this can be achieved on ancient CPUs even. Software rendering @ 1 frame per 30 days that is

Sure, it can be done on any turing machine, but even old 3d accelerators can do it pretty efficient. (The other effects, not the SH lighting (for that you would need vertex shaders)) You need 32-Bit rendering, the usual alpha blending modes and render to texture, not exactly high-end features.

 

[FightyF]

There's some nice math (Fourier chains), physics (lens equations for DOF) in there and some pictures of primitive objects (like 2 boxes) lit with a nice global illumination system. Oh, and a bunch of ASM code (I assume it's PS2 ASM) too.

Will this be ever used in PS2 games? I don't think so (too late).

Those boxes you see are from a PC demo, IIRC. I think it's in the PPT to visually demonstrate the definitions of the terms being used.

 

[Warm Machine]

SH lighting on PS2 is OLD! The majority of games you've played already use SH as a means of faking global illumination. The same technique is used on all other current gen hardware. It isn't PS2 specific and is actually computationally and memory wise better than a old fasioned lookup method for lighting which is why its use spread so quickly. Variants of the technique are used in almost every racing game.