This is Microsofts fault. WHYYYY DON'T THEY CHANGE TO HDDVD IN THE 360 ?!?!??!??!!?!?

Instead of selling a external HDDVD they could have it intergrated and keep the price. I don't give a sh*t about pricedrops. It's the gaming that's important. That's why PS3 is going to defeat XBOX 360 next year and the year after until another next-gen consoles gets released. Then probably discs will have 300 GB space but Microsoft will stick with intergrated HDDVD. Idiots !! =/

This is a good point, but not necessarily a drawback. There are several pathways to procedural generation. Since procedural textures are easily paralleled, they can be divided between Xenos or the three Xenon Cores or both.

It still takes artists to make procedural textures. Procedural does not necessarily mean they are generated automatically. Think of them more as layered textures.

/* Copyrighted Pixar 1988 */
/* From the RenderMan Companion p.355 */
/* Listing 16.19 Blue marble surface shader*/

/*
* blue_marble(): a marble stone texture in shades of blue
* surface
*/

blue_marble(
float Ks = .4,
Kd = .6,
Ka = .1,
roughness = .1,
txtscale = 1;
color specularcolor = 1)
{
point PP; /* scaled point in shader space */
float csp; /* color spline parameter */
point Nf; /* forward-facing normal */
point V; /* for specular() */
float pixelsize, twice, scale, weight, turbulence;

/* Obtain a forward-facing normal for lighting calculations. */
Nf = faceforward( normalize(N), I);
V = normalize(-I);

/*
* Compute "turbulence" a la [PERLIN85]. Turbulence is a sum of
* "noise" components with a "fractal" 1/f power spectrum. It gives the
* visual impression of turbulent fluid flow (for example, as in the
* formation of blue_marble from molten color splines!). Use the
* surface element area in texture space to control the number of
* noise components so that the frequency content is appropriate
* to the scale. This prevents aliasing of the texture.
*/
PP = transform("shader", P) * txtscale;
pixelsize = sqrt(area(PP));
twice = 2 * pixelsize;
turbulence = 0;
for (scale = 1; scale > twice; scale /= 2)
turbulence += scale * noise(PP/scale);

/* Gradual fade out of highest-frequency component near limit */
if (scale > pixelsize) {
weight = (scale / pixelsize) - 1;
weight = clamp(weight, 0, 1);
turbulence += weight * scale * noise(PP/scale);
}

/*
* Magnify the upper part of the turbulence range 0.75:1
* to fill the range 0:1 and use it as the parameter of
* a color spline through various shades of blue.
*/
csp = clamp(4 * turbulence - 3, 0, 1);
Ci = color spline(csp,
color (0.25, 0.25, 0.35), /* pale blue */
color (0.25, 0.25, 0.35), /* pale blue */
color (0.20, 0.20, 0.30), /* medium blue */
color (0.20, 0.20, 0.30), /* medium blue */
color (0.20, 0.20, 0.30), /* medium blue */
color (0.25, 0.25, 0.35), /* pale blue */
color (0.25, 0.25, 0.35), /* pale blue */
color (0.15, 0.15, 0.26), /* medium dark blue */
color (0.15, 0.15, 0.26), /* medium dark blue */
color (0.10, 0.10, 0.20), /* dark blue */
color (0.10, 0.10, 0.20), /* dark blue */
color (0.25, 0.25, 0.35), /* pale blue */
color (0.10, 0.10, 0.20) /* dark blue */
);

/* Multiply this color by the diffusely reflected light. */
Ci *= Ka*ambient() + Kd*diffuse(Nf);

/* Adjust for opacity. */
Oi = Os;
Ci = Ci * Oi;

/* Add in specular highlights. */
Ci += specularcolor * Ks * specular(Nf,V,roughness);
}

It still takes artists to make procedural textures. Procedural does not necessarily mean they are generated automatically. Think of them more as layered textures.

But Grift, compression is absolutely necessary for consoles. Even if a game is only 2GB big, all the data is compressed on the DVD. Assuming even minor compression, 2x, that allows disk data to be streamed 2x as quickly to the system memory -- and CPU decompression speeds are insignificant in comparison to the time it takes to stream data. As a developer I know stated: All good developers use compression.

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

See the example there; it's a combination of layers of alphas and patterns. It still takes an artist a lot of work to create it (and some programming apparently when it comes to games). I use procedurals a lot in my work mainly because UV's are a bitch. ;)

From what I'm reading the main consideration actually is storage limitations, and the randomness procedurals can create.

Of course you can create procedural textures without artists. But you wouldn't for most of the texture work you see in a game.

Math is hard for artists? Tools for creating procedural texture will *become* available? You really have no idea what you are talking about, I'm sorry, because procedurally generated textures have been around since the first 3d app on PC's.

No, they were probably generated by software that extracted them from the 3d app the artist was using.

I have never seen a texture generated by code like that. But you can install Modo and layer textures and play with layers and blending options 'til the cows come home if you like, and you will never need to enter a lick of code.

http://www.luxology.com/

I am not arguing for the sake of arguing, I happen to be a 3d artist.

Of course it does. Interfacing with the controller does too.

......

Forget it.

Right now most procedural synthesis is done at creation time, but eventually it will be done in some circumstances at loadtime and eventually even at runtime (many procedural texture applications are in the range of 40 ops).

The fact is games are using procedural technologies now and have been and they will only become more common as games need more art assets and hence artists, which are expensive, and game size increases but storage medium transfer rates remain low.