A glimpse at future console graphics...

[rabbitc]

Tom's Hardware just picked up this great story about the awesome stuff that ATI (*cough-M$ partner-cough*) is doing with Ray-tracing technology using the DirectX 10.1 CLL.

AMD Shows Ray-tracing Tech on YouTube - Tom's Hardware

The videos linked are a bit fuzzy - but it's pretty astounding what they are accomplishing.

[Blasterpez]

interesting...no pixels used in that video.

[Pepper Jack]

that looks pretty interesting, keep us posted, if they made games look like that i would be amazed

[oli]

That looks pretty impressive , be interesting to see what level they can step it up each console from now on.

[blu_yu_away]

Video isn't the best, but I can certainly tell it looks pretty impressive. It'd be pretty amazing to see a game with graphics like this.

[Scotracer]

The next generations of consoles will not be doing ray-tracing...but maybe in 10 years.

[remixFA]

Originally Posted by Blasterpez

interesting...no pixels used in that video.

u got it backwards, its no polygons, not pixels... each pixel was treated as a seperate entity.

[bevo1981]

i'm severely handicapped when it comes to this stuff, but hollywood has been making computer generated scenes in movies for years that you can't even tell are fake. why are video games so far behind those graphics?

[Scotracer]

Originally Posted by bevo1981

i'm severely handicapped when it comes to this stuff, but hollywood has been making computer generated scenes in movies for years that you can't even tell are fake. why are video games so far behind those graphics?

Hardware. To render something like Toy Story requires ridiculous processing power and frame-buffers in the Gigabytes. Also, remember they are only performing a scripted event where every eventuality is known but when you have a game, by their very nature you have more physics interactions etc etc. Also, with a film, you aren't watching/playing in real time so you have the ability to render if before playing it back (hence the term "pre-rendered"). As an example, a single frame (and films are 24-27fps) took 2-3 hours to render for Toy Story, rendering at 1.4megapixel (just about 720p)...and even more for some really complex frames. So there is no chance that one could play a game of that quality in real time.

The main difference between games and films now is textures, lighting and post-processing effects (anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering etc etc). The models themselves are reaching the point where it makes little difference (look at a car in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue or a model from a brand new FPS).

The best rendering I've seen for a game is this pre-rendered image for a mod for the PC racing sim, rFactor:



It's beautiful (it uses ray-traced reflections) but if you look in the lower right hand corner you can see how long it took to render on a gaming PC. That single frame. And this game should run at 60frames/second.

We've got a long way to go.

[Blasterpez]

Originally Posted by remixFA

u got it backwards, its no polygons, not pixels... each pixel was treated as a seperate entity.

oh yeah, that makes more sense. the more i thought about it the more i couldn't understand how they could get around no pixels.

that car does look pretty good. what does that say, 4 hour render time?

[Pepper Jack]

what's a polygon?

[remixFA]

Originally Posted by Pepper Jack

what's a polygon?

a polygon is the basis of the geometrical shapes in 3d rendering that makes the shapes. For general consensus (i await to be corrected) if you look at a wireframe immage, its a bunch of triangles connected together. different sizes and amounts make up diffent shapes. This is why older games look so.. pointed. 2 triangles on top of eachother make a square.. enough squares make a cube or box... enough triangles at a slight angle will make a jaggie circle... add some smoothing effects and you dont notice...

btw...
scott, the tires look totally fake!!

[Pepper Jack]

Originally Posted by remixFA

a polygon is the basis of the geometrical shapes in 3d rendering that makes the shapes. For general consensus (i await to be corrected) if you look at a wireframe immage, its a bunch of triangles connected together. different sizes and amounts make up diffent shapes. This is why older games look so.. pointed. 2 triangles on top of eachother make a square.. enough squares make a cube or box... enough triangles at a slight angle will make a jaggie circle... add some smoothing effects and you dont notice...

btw...
scott, the tires look totally fake!!

yeah i thought the tires looked fake too but the rest looked god damn amazing, it's only a matter of time until that kinda technology is available in console gaming, and it's these amazing developments that are the reason that i'll probably be gaming even when i'm a grown man with a wife and kids

and is a polygon the entire structure or just one of the triangles?

[remixFA]

a polygon is the 3d shape the triangles make in laymans terminology. express my inconcistency if im wrong.. umm..like 7 mixd drinks into it atm

[Blasterpez]

Originally Posted by remixFA

a polygon is the 3d shape the triangles make in laymans terminology. express my inconcistency if im wrong.. umm..like 7 mixd drinks into it atm

but somehow, you make more sense then normal.

[rabbitc]

Originally Posted by Scotracer

The next generations of consoles will not be doing ray-tracing...but maybe in 10 years.

LOL! 10 years???

[Scotracer]

Originally Posted by rabbitc

LOL! 10 years???

Look at teh performance of consoles from 1995 to 2005 with the PSX to the PS3. I believe in 10 years ray-tracing will be possible.

There have been a few demos of 3 PS3s connected together being able to do real-time ray-tracing. So, the next generation of consoles will be much faster than 3x faster than the PS3 and then in 10 years we may see the next-next generation out.

Have faith

[rabbitc]

Not at all - in actual fact, I think you are grossly underestimating the progress of GPU technology.

I think 10 years is far too conservative.
Remember - technology development is an exponential curve, not a static trend.