Rare's ability is so underestimated.

Since 6904 Days

IGN: In what ways does PDZ take advantage of the Xbox 360's engine?

Cliff Ramshaw and Sam Jones: PDZ uses highly optimised, micro-coded pixel and vertex shaders to extract the best performance out of the console. The console's support for floating point render targets means that PDZ's high dynamic range lighting has far greater fidelity than was possible with the previous generation. Longer shaders and the ability to make complex decisions within the shaders mean that a large set of advanced material properties can be applied in unison in an efficient manner. Previously, only a subset of these features could be used for any one surface, and even then, compromises would have had to be made in the quality of the effects.

The sort of properties that can be applied simultaneously to a surface include: normal mapping, refraction, reflection, Fresnel effects, dynamic soft shadows, parallax mapping, per-pixel variable highlight width and strength, sub-surface scattering and ambient occlusion. Scene-level effects include: the ability to have sunlight plus many local lights having an influence on all objects in the scene (this makes use of wrinkles in Xbox360's graphics pipeline to ensure maximum efficiency); full-screen per-pixel motion blur; dynamic "god rays" or light shafts; proper sorting of transparencies via depth-peeling, high dynamic range with bloom and star filters.

IGN: In what ways does Kameo take advantage of the Xbox 360's powerful engine?

Nick Burton: We always wanted to have crowd scenes in Kameo and started to do some experiments with the Xbox 1 and figured we could get maybe 100 or so NPCs. Once we moved onto the Xbox 360 we thought, "Let's try something that will slow it down, how about 1,000? Ran fine, no problem whatsoever! How about 3,000? Still fine!" Then we thought we had better try it with something more taxing than a test level so we put them on the Battle Field level which was all parallax and normal mapped, had a huge draw distance and lots of special effects like volumetric smoke; it still ran fine. In the released game we had something like 3000-plus NPCs because more than that was hard to choreograph, but the 360 can do much more. At one point during debug we found that each of the NPCs in one scene were being drawn 4 times by mistake, that's 12,000 being drawn and still no sign of slowdown.

We had a similar story with the GPU particle systems... We had a test running with a 100,000 particles being computed purely on the GPU, no CPU intervention at all. Now the Xbox 1 could do that but on the 360 they all react to the player and hit the floor and are lit, then we tried more, lots more! How about 1 milion? We aren't talking test levels or tech demos here. They are actually in the released game, and you can go and count them in the Throne Room. Most levels don't have quite that many though as only about 300,000 are normally in visible range at one time.

Honestly and they did this at launch... imagine what other devs could do if they used the 360's hardware like Rare does. It seems Rare knows how to use the 360's GPU better than any other dev out there. With all that talent I really don't believe Microsoft's purchase of rare was a dud purchase I see people say that a lot.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/693/693239p3.html

Almost every surface in Kameo is both normal and parallax mapped, has a detail map, is shadowed, has some global illumination and has an accurate dynamic lighting model. On top of the main model shaders, you have so many effects such as (but not all) particles, volumetric smoke and fire, instanced foliage, grass shaders, true reflections, accurate depth of field, bloom, color correction, real-time water surfaces, heat haze, and much more.

Like would it be too far to call Kameo the 360's most technically impressive title (even over gears of war?) I think it is.

In reply to

[quote] IGN: In what ways does PDZ take advantage of the Xbox 360's engine?

Cliff Ramshaw and Sam Jones: PDZ uses highly optimised, micro-coded pixel and vertex shaders to extract the best performance out of the console. The console's support for floating point render targets means that PDZ's high dynamic range lighting has far greater fidelity than was possible with the previous generation. Longer shaders and the ability to make complex decisions within the shaders mean that a large set of advanced material properties can be applied in unison in an efficient manner. Previously, only a subset of these features could be used for any one surface, and even then, compromises would have had to be made in the quality of the effects.

[b] The sort of properties that can be applied simultaneously to a surface include: normal mapping, refraction, reflection, Fresnel effects, dynamic soft shadows, parallax mapping, per-pixel variable highlight width and strength, sub-surface scattering and ambient occlusion. Scene-level effects include: the ability to have sunlight plus many local lights having an influence on all objects in the scene (this makes use of wrinkles in Xbox360's graphics pipeline to ensure maximum efficiency); full-screen per-pixel motion blur; dynamic "god rays" or light shafts; proper sorting of transparencies via depth-peeling, high dynamic range with bloom and star filters. [/b] [/quote]

[quote] IGN: In what ways does Kameo take advantage of the Xbox 360's powerful engine?

[b] Nick Burton: We always wanted to have crowd scenes in Kameo and started to do some experiments with the Xbox 1 and figured we could get maybe 100 or so NPCs. Once we moved onto the Xbox 360 we thought, "Let's try something that will slow it down, how about 1,000? Ran fine, no problem whatsoever! How about 3,000? Still fine!" Then we thought we had better try it with something more taxing than a test level so we put them on the Battle Field level which was all parallax and normal mapped, had a huge draw distance and lots of special effects like volumetric smoke; it still ran fine. In the released game we had something like 3000-plus NPCs because more than that was hard to choreograph, but the 360 can do much more. At one point during debug we found that each of the NPCs in one scene were being drawn 4 times by mistake, that's 12,000 being drawn and still no sign of slowdown.

We had a similar story with the GPU particle systems... We had a test running with a 100,000 particles being computed purely on the GPU, no CPU intervention at all. Now the Xbox 1 could do that but on the 360 they all react to the player and hit the floor and are lit, then we tried more, lots more! How about 1 milion? We aren't talking test levels or tech demos here. They are actually in the released game, and you can go and count them in the Throne Room. Most levels don't have quite that many though as only about 300,000 are normally in visible range at one time. [/b][/quote]

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/693/693239p3.html

[b] Almost every surface in Kameo is both normal and parallax mapped, has a detail map, is shadowed, has some global illumination and has an accurate dynamic lighting model. On top of the main model shaders, you have so many effects such as (but not all) particles, volumetric smoke and fire, instanced foliage, grass shaders, true reflections, accurate depth of field, bloom, color correction, real-time water surfaces, heat haze, and much more. [/b]

Like would it be too far to call Kameo the 360's most technically impressive title (even over gears of war?)  I think it is.

Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

Acert93

Since 6983 Days

Very old interview discussed a bit back in late 2005/early 2006. Rare has a lot of technical talent and both games were upgrades from games largely developed on the Xbox1. The question now is can they develop a quality game (gameplay, story) and good art to accent their technology skills? I think yes, but then again I like Rare games even if recent ones have not been as good as the old days.

In reply to

Optimusv2 said: "Gun for the 360 has better graphics than both Halo 3 and Gears of War"

Optimusv2

Since 6904 Days

You may have a point, but I think it has more to do with the console the games are on.

I actually think Kameo or Viva Pinata would've been a MAJOR success if they were released on a nintendo console.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=8757&typ...

Like the check the smoke over the water in this kameo review at 1:58... crazy. I'm eager to see what other Microsoft first parties achieve. Turn 10, Bungie. Bungie is also using a GPU run particle system so I wanna see how that works out. Rare SHOULD share tips and tricks with bungie as apart of them being a first party am I right?

Kameo and PDZ were launch I don't have viva pinata myself, but a lot of people I know love the game. I think Banjo 3 will get rid of any fears people may have about Rare.

In reply to

Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

GriftGFX

Since 7012 Days

Rareware's technical ability has never really been in question, they're hardware masters. It's the quality of the game itself that people question.

Viva Pinata has recieved a pretty nice response, just hasn't been selling well.

In reply to

palamede

Since 6766 Days

Thanks for the vid, optimus. I didn't like kameo and I was blaming it for not having ripples when your character swims. I was surprised to see that this feature was implemented but not applied to Kameo !
The lack of ripples/water interaction is like my major complain about next gen game, we have amazing looking water but the lack of ripples makes it look fake or something !

In reply to

We fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way

Killers

Since 7017 Days

Yeah, who cares about story and gameplay? GIEF RIPPLES TO THE PEOPLE!!!

;)

In reply to

palamede

Since 6766 Days

We're talking about graphics and effects
To be honest, the lack of interaction with water is somehow disturbing : no ripples, no splash when someone runs in the water... CoD3 is one of the worst games for that : water and reflections are incredible but nothing happens when you see someone running in the water. Same in GRAW2 multi, I think, and yet they have a lot of water in the game. Somehow disturbing, IMO...
In the French forum, we're having a major argument about racing games, 3D grass and its effects on gameplay : to put in a nutshell, 3D grass unables you to take better curbs...

In reply to

We fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way

palamede

Since 6766 Days

oops, enables* too late to edit -

In reply to

We fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way

Jollipop

Since 6895 Days

Ripples requires physics processing and cube mapping.

Yes it's possible this gen, but when you gain something you lose something, so is the cost of ripples worth losing detail/proformance elsewhere, I guess that's what the dev has to decide.

Blue Dragon has some of the best water i have seen in a game, yet has no interaction, yes it's disappointing, but it's something we have to live with.

I think this is where Cell may one up the Xenon at some point, it is ideal for doing physics calculations.

In reply to

Marumaro for the WIN !!

palamede

Since 6766 Days

Thanks for the answer, jolli. yet, don't you think it's possible to have fake ripples or splashes (splashes= 1polygon with a "splash" texture) ? Do you think it was achieved through physics processing and cube mapping on Kameo ?

In reply to

We fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way

Jollipop

Since 6895 Days

I'm guesing you could fake it fairly easily.

Although water displacement has been around for years, I remember getting a tech demo with the geforce 256 that demonstrated it, not really seen it in a game though.

In reply to

Marumaro for the WIN !!

szaromir

Since 6769 Days

How awesome is Rare?

So awesome.:)

Kameo is amazing game, especially in graphics and music department. And it never has slowdowns, which is an amazing achievement for a 360 launch title. :) I played Banjo-Kazooie recently for the first time, really great game, bad camera sucks. Still had lots of fun with it and can't wait for Banjo 3.

In reply to

Optimusv2

Since 6904 Days

Yea I think Banjo 3 is going to put them back where they belong.

Expect some incredible use of the 360's hardware from them with that game.

Also I believe the 360 definitely has a lot more power to spare for more interactive water because I mean even Kameo has rippling water (just not used in all places most likely an artistisic design choice rather than technical limitation) and Kameo is just a launch title.

Jolli I believe you are right this an area in which I do expect the Cell to have an advantage, but one has to feel good about the 360's strengths. I mean all of the particles in Kameo are all ran just off the GPU no help from cpu no slowdown and they look mindblowingly good. Imagine the types of things that will be possible later.

What made Rare's games great in the past is that they consistently felt like fun games there was no drop off in my opinion. Kameo had signs of greatness then had its drop off points where it felt tedious or like a chore. Perfect Dark... was a complete and utter mess. Viva Pinata they really nailed it I believe, but we all knew that wasn't going to sell to the majority. Banjo now is where I believe they'll get their form back.

In reply to

Yea I think Banjo 3 is going to put them back where they belong.

Expect some incredible use of the 360's hardware from them with that game.

Also I believe the 360 definitely has a lot more power to spare for more interactive water because I mean even Kameo has rippling water (just not used in all places most likely an artistisic design choice rather than technical limitation) and Kameo is just a launch title.

Jolli I believe you are right this an area in which I do expect the Cell to have an advantage, but one has to feel good about the 360's strengths.  I mean all of the particles in Kameo are all ran just off the GPU no help from cpu no slowdown and they look mindblowingly good.  Imagine the types of things that will be possible later.

What made Rare's games great in the past is that they consistently felt like fun games there was no drop off in my opinion.  Kameo had signs of greatness then had its drop off points where it felt tedious or like a chore.  Perfect Dark... was a complete and utter mess.  Viva Pinata they really nailed it I believe, but we all knew that wasn't going to sell to the majority.  Banjo now is where I believe they'll get their form back.

Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

palamede

Since 6766 Days

Ouch, too bad, banjo was like my worst nightmare on N64 !
The game looked great but it's not the kind I like best.
I'd kill for a goldeneye 360 or a decent PDZ

In reply to

We fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way

Optimusv2

Since 6904 Days

They're making another perfect dark. This perfect dark going through all the issues it did on previous consoles clearly soiled the 360 product, but I believe they'll make a really good pdz next time out.

In reply to

Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

Jollipop

Since 6895 Days

I would give up with PD most of the original PD team left and made that studio which i forget the name off. (um the one that's doing haze)

Also now that the stomper brothers have left i imagine Rare will become a different company all together. (a lot more productive)

I think Rare should stick with platformy kiddy games and leave the shooters to other more experienced developers.

I'm kind of hoping the rumors of a Viva Pinata racer is true.

In reply to

Marumaro for the WIN !!

Optimusv2

Since 6904 Days

Perfect Dark wasn't actually that bad for a shooter as far as gameplay is concerned. (The aiming was kinda funny though) It just had bad story that didn't flow so well and bad art direction.

I think they should've exploited the gadgets aspect of the game much much better than they did. I think when they give us a true perfect dark sequel it might be good. Then again I wouldn't mind if they stuck to the kiddy looking games if they do things right it turns out well. Man what I would do for Sakaguchi and Mistwalker to actually work with Rare on a title. That would be like a match made in heaven. Rare's technical expertise along with sakaguchi and mistwalker's guidance.

I really think they'd nail a viva pinata racer.

In reply to

Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

gmulis

Since 6800 Days

the reason why ppl doubt rare is because of the quality of the games is poor. and their games don't appeal to xbox gamers. they would rather prefer gory games like gears, and fps like halo.....not that its bad, but its problem

In reply to

mess with the best die the like rest

Optimusv2

Since 6904 Days

Yea people that want games like rare makes usually just buy a nintendo console.

I hope Rare's next set of games can make such a big splash that there are a lot of sales.

In reply to

Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

szaromir

Since 6769 Days

I think Conker, Kameo and Viva Pinata are all very very good games, almost comparable to Rare classics such as Banjo-Kazooie. I didn't like PDZ that much - shooting is kinda funny but overally I think the game's horrible.

In reply to

Optimusv2

Since 6904 Days

Kameo definitely doesn't suck. I personally think its a very nice game, but not one that holds my attention too long sadly :(

I think Kameo would be a very big deal if it were on a nintendo console.

In reply to

Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

szaromir

Since 6769 Days

Well, Kameo sold quite good for a launch title at least. But I think Microsoft sould advertise Rare games a little better. I think Crackdown is a good example what they should do in future:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1551557/20070202/...
Of course, we don't know yet how Crackdown will sell, but I doubt it'll bomb.

In reply to

Jollipop

Since 6895 Days

I thought Kameo was great, graphically was amazing.

Was way too easy and way way too short.

In reply to

Marumaro for the WIN !!

Scarface

Since 6999 Days

Posted by Jollipop

I thought Kameo was great, graphically was amazing.

yep. I think kameo was a next gen adventure/platformer, but pdz was a shiney last gen FPS.

In reply to

Optimusv2

Since 6904 Days

Posted by szaromir

It begins....

Also guys am I the only one that thinks Kameo is the 360's most technically impressive title? I think what made Gears look so amazing was more an artistic thing than technical, but sure its no slouch technically either.

In reply to

Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

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