Will NURBS finally surface in games next gen?

T

The Abominable Snowman

Member
Even before the PS2 launched, there was almost something of mass hysteria over the Nurbs thing.Many people -AND MAGAZINE EDITORS- expected the PS2 to be the end-all machine when it would announce with the ability to push NURBS faster than some machines out can push polygons. Of course, this never happened.

As CPUs and GPUs become progressively more powerful, and new techniques are needed to stand out, do you think that NURBS has some sort of chance at happening next generation? They're less resource intensive than Polygons, however they're a new graphics technique, and it might be some time til developers get used to handling NURBS. That's the biggest downfall I can think of. Are there any more potential downfalls to using NURBS?

I think that if any of the 3 console titans use NURBS next generation, as well as per pixel effects, then they are likely to have it wrapped up as far as graphic potential goes.
 
I'm a graphics newbie. I know what a polygon is, but NURBS sounds like the northern outskirts of a large city. Please, what is a NURB?
 
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/news/news_6027470.html

The PSP's display will be a widescreen 480x272-pixel LCD illuminated by a backlight. The device promises robust 3D graphics, powered by advanced .09-micron chips. Sony intends the PSP to not only use traditional polygonal 3D graphics, but also curved surfaces (NURBs) that are not common in current games but could result in very smoothly curved visuals. The device will also be able to play high-quality MPEG4-encoded video. Sony plans to make PC-based development tools available this fall to let developers prepare a new range of entertainment content.
Click to expand...
 
The only beneifit of Nurbs it would seem is for curved surfaces(which would be cool.) but would not be ideal for straight surfaces, thus why Polygons are still the norm.
 
I was under the impression that w/ NURBS, the entire character model would be one big, curved polygon. Is that right?
 
Christ, I wish OMG NURBS ARE BETTER THAN POLYGONS SO NEXT-GEN HARDWARE SHOULD HAVE IT!!!!111one crap would stop. If games did move to NURBS be prepared to see some shitty models, since almost no one in the game industry knows or cares about modeling with NURBS. Even a large chunk of the film industry has moved on to subdivision surfaces.

NURBS are just tesselated into polygons in the end anyways, so the only thing you're getting is a backwards outdated modeling workflow.

Saying NURBS = curved polygons is grossly misleading and innaccurate.


vvvv CHROME spheres! vvvvv
 
Yusaku said:
Even a large chunk of the film industry has moved on to subdivision surfaces.
Click to expand...

So weird that you bring that up. It was just last week I was reading Piecewise Smooth Subdivision Surfaces with Normal Control while I was getting my oil changed. :D

Um, yeah. Not really. Never heard of these before now, not that that means anything. Found this little niblet for anyone else who's curious and has no clue (like me):

Excerpted from NYU Research Media Lab's site:

Subdivision Surfaces
Subdivision is an algorithmic technique to generate smooth surfaces as a sequence of successively refined polyhedral meshes. Subdivision algorithms are exceptionally simple, work for arbitrary control meshes and produce globally smooth surfaces. Special choices of subdivision rules allow for the introduction of features into a surface in a simple way. Subdivision-based representations of complex geometry can be manipulated and rendered very efficiently, which makes subdivision a highly suitable tool for interactive animation and modeling systems. Over the last few years, subdivision surfaces were integrated into a number of commerical modeling and rendering systems


Anyway, pretty cool stuff, thanks for the info Yusaku!
 
Scrow said:
great... we'll have games consisting of worlds made entirely of spheres ;P
Click to expand...

Good point Young man let me demonstrate the first game to use nurbs.
ballz.gif

BALLZ_007.jpg

BALLZ_002.jpg

BALLZ_004.jpg

BALLZ_005.jpg

BALLZ_006.jpg

BALLZ_008.jpg


Now do you want to go back to Nurbs?
 
uh...those are spites...not NURBS

This is a model that uses NURBS:

nurbs.jpg


NOTE: I wouldn't expect the above picture to be a benchmark of (console game) model quality until at least the gen after next
 
Hmm, seeing how Maya works with NURBS natively (I think LightWave as well, but I may be wrong since I haven't followed it after 5.5), I wonder where the idea that they never took over came from...
 
Tenkei said:
Hmm, seeing how Maya works with NURBS natively (I think LightWave as well, but I may be wrong since I haven't followed it after 5.5), I wonder where the idea that they never took over came from...
Click to expand...


Probably from the lack of NURBS in actual games :b
 
The Abominable Snowman said:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...illa:en-US:official&oi=defmore&q=define:NURBS

Basically, curved polygons. Instead of having to use hundreds of polygons to create a perhaps imperfect curved surface, you can use one nurb and it'd be as curved as the pixels allow it to be.
Click to expand...

Basically Nurbs save a lot of memory when you use the Nurbs formula and coefficients to describe a curve surface. The details and subdivison of the curve surface into polygons is done at runtime thus the calculation take a big hit on the traditional CPU. Currently, we are using polygons to descirbe a curve which takes up a lot of memory spaces and it is not easily scalable at runtime (i.e. testellation).
 
Why would you even want them? Sub-D polys look just as good if not better for character modeling, and you dont have to worry about the seams splitting apart on extreme poses of animation. for hard surface modeling though like cars and such I think It might be beneficial, but for characters. I think displacement, and normal mapping is the future of game graphics, not nurbs.
 
I say all water next gen should be made of NURBS (and be animated model-wise and texture-wise)

I'm sick of the flat-as-a-sheet-of-paper water that is so common in games today. Just slapping texture effects on it isn't going to make it look good. (-_-) The *only* games to use paper flat water and make it look really good are Far Cry and Half-Life 2.
 
Gattsu25 said:
uh...those are spites...not NURBS

This is a model that uses NURBS:

nurbs.jpg


NOTE: I wouldn't expect the above picture to be a benchmark of (console game) model quality until at least the gen after next
Click to expand...

That dinasaur would look excellent without cat ears.
 
NURBS have already been used in some PS2 games like SSX and WRC. As next generation games will share assets with movies, I expect NURBS support will increase significantly.
For hires, smooth models NURBS are a very compact way of representing a surface.
The main drawback is that currently game artists are unfamiliar with NURBS modelling techniques, but I expect a lot of people from the movie industry to get into games next gen, so it is only natural that they will push for NURBS support.
 
Fuck NURBS! They are a pain in the ass to model with and a pain in the ass to do collision on. With the ridiculous power of the next gen's consoles you'd might as well do everything in tris.
 
I think NURBS missed the boat for realtme gaming since the computational drain vs. memory savings ratio never really worked out in favor of using it. The next holy grail is definitely realtime ray tracing.
 
They were going to be used in RETRO STUDIOS NFL FOOTBALL GAME. I just read about it in an article on IGN. Check it out here: http://cube.ign.com/articles/574/574119p6.html

Retro's motion capture data with NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational Bezier Spline), which are mathematical representations of 3D objects using Bezier curves opposed to polygons, to figure out how to get the best possible performance out of their models.
Click to expand...

Well I dont know if they were just for development or actually in the engine.
 
LOL, I remember when the early reports of this generation were fully convinced that consoles will mainly use NURBS (Jurassic Park-like graphics on PS2!!!).
 
Bezier and curved surface patches have had a place in console games since the Dreamcast with selective application, modeling rolling terrain and other undulating surfaces in games like snowboarding titles and those with complex landscapes.
 
I remember reading on these boards where artists would take a sub-divided model, apply a bump map to it, and then use that bump map on the original model?

I'd say that's a pretty cool idea, and a good use of subdivisions in games.
 
NURBS suck ass...give me real time subdvidion of low poly models or some sick displacements maps..not just normal or bump maps.
 
Oh nostalgia! I remember the ol' GAF threads saying;

Project Dolphin: NURBS?

And you click in it and it's just a huge load of wishful thinking!
 
My old company had an engine that was working on NURBS back in the day. The game never got published. Our modelers were real troopers and did pretty damn well adjusting to the whole new paradigm. There was just a *smidgen* of complaints from them ;P.

We figured out a sneaky math trick to get performance up, and even guys from Nvidia were pretty impressed with what we did. They were considering putting some more hardware support for higher order surfaces in future cards and perhaps using our game as pack-in.

The problem was that the higher ups at Nvidia were thinking that it was the wrong direction to go. And they were totally right. With the huge amounts of polys that modern chipsets can blast through, who really needs NURBS? That's why they were the higher ups at Nvidia, because they were smart enough to see ahead.

As Sho Nuff said, collision was a bitch. Artists weren't enamored with it. And the future hardware didn't support it.

Back at the time, we were kind of on the cusp and there were still benefits to it because of where the hardware was at. We just chose the wrong way :(.
 
Firest0rm said:
Have you guys read that Retro special at IGNCube? Retro was actually using NURBS for the NFL game. Until it was canceled.
Click to expand...

It was using NURBS during the player modeling process not during the actual game.

The big problem with NURBS is at the end you still need to transform them into polygons. And it's only usefull when you need "round" deformable surface.
 
Milhouse31 said:
It was using NURBS during the player modeling process not during the actual game.

The big problem with NURBS is at the end you still need to transform them into polygons. And it's only usefull when you need "round" deformable surface.
Click to expand...

What use is it to simply apply them in the player modeling and not the actual game then?
 
Firest0rm said:
What use is it to simply apply them in the player modeling and not the actual game then?
Click to expand...

You model and then you transform your NURB models into a polygon models (the process is called tessellation).

By modifying the parameter in the tessellation process (more details or less details), you can come up with different models ( CGI, in game far, in game close, ... ) based on the same model.
 
KiNeSiS said:
Good point Young man let me demonstrate the first game to use nurbs.

Now do you want to go back to Nurbs?
Click to expand...
umm, my post wasn't even referring to nurbs, but ray-tracing (hence the quote i included).
 
Takosuke said:
Wasn't Quake 3 supposed to have a heavy use of NURBS ?
Click to expand...

Not really. It had extruded curved surfaces that were triangulated to match the machine's performance. So high-end machines could have nice highpoly surfaces without screwing low-end hardware.
 
GG-Duo said:
I remember reading on these boards where artists would take a sub-divided model, apply a bump map to it, and then use that bump map on the original model?

I'd say that's a pretty cool idea, and a good use of subdivisions in games.
Click to expand...

Well, that's almost in essense, normal mapping/polybump. It's all the rage these days ya know. :P
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Next Gen Consoles Expected for 2027 by Supermassive Games / Nordisk
Opinion Game Dev Platform  2 3 4
184
3K
SkylineRKR replied
  • Poll
Exclusivity is dead, NeoGAF - do you think Nintendo will release games on other hardware in the next 10 years?
2 3 4
156
478
daclynk replied
Nintendo likely to become "primary partner for third-party game publishers" over next gen, Switch 2 will sell 100 million by 2030 - DFC Intelligence
2 3
145
2K
Woopah replied
COD leaker: MW4 (2026) skipping last gen, in dev on next-gen Xbox dev kits
2 3 4 5
220
12K
HeisenbergFX4 replied
DrUckmann is essentially a next-gen Kojima
Analysis  2 3 4 5
236
12K
Balducci30 replied
Top Bottom