PS4 and next xboxcould produce avatar like graphics

[MGSfan]

]Xbox 720, PS4 Graphics Could Get Close To Avatar's Quality, Says Geomerics
Author: William Usherpublished: 2012-09-11 01:17:19

The new benchmark in visual fidelity is no longer Crysis. No, instead, across all forms of digital and cinematic media the benchmark is now James Cameron's 2009 live-action/animated blue-people movie, Avatar. With that said, AMD has already mentioned that the next gen Xbox could produce Avatar-like graphics and the co-founder of Geomerics has followed in AMD's footsteps claiming that lighting capabilities could hit that benchmark as well.

In a recent interview we conducted with Dr. Chris Doran the co-founder of Geomerics, a company responsible for middleware engine Enlighten – the same tools used to power the lighting mechanics in Frostbite 2.0 games such as Battlefield 3 and Need for Speed: The Run – Doran mentioned some interesting things about moving forward with light mechanics and scaling the software for next-gen hardware, saying...
Enlighten already runs on current generation hardware. So you can imagine that on next generation hardware Enlighten runs without touching the sides! We have already proved this out in our GPU implementation, developed in collaboration with NVIDIA, which is an order of magnitude faster than current consoles.

By “touching the sides” he means that the software is already up to par and that now it's just a matter of waiting for the hardware to play a little bit of catch up with where the software development tools have already reached.

Doran goes on to talk about what we've all been wondering: how much more powerful will the next-gen consoles be and is the software capable of pushing the hardware to those Avatar-limits we keep hearing about? According to Dr. Doran, Enlighten is already on the mountaintop...
“So then the question is: what can developers do with all this extra power? With Enlighten there are a number of ways we expect to see the quality bar lifted.

“Where the graphics quality bar will end up is unclear, but I am confident that the lighting itself could get close to Avatar quality. Then the question moves onto other aspects of content creation. Is that level of modeling detail feasible, and will the animation, physics, and AI all be equally plausible. And finally, will the game be any good!”

The last part is probably the most important part, especially considering that it wasn't too long ago that 2K Games head honcho Christoph Hartmann told GamesIndustry [via Destructoid] that photorealism was the next step in game design. Even though in reality, photorealism isn't really the thing that makes a game fun.

Lighting, when used creatively, like in scenarios for games like Deadlight or Limbo, can help bring the game to life in unique ways that can increase both immersion and intrigue.

Whether developers will actually take the creative route with tools such as Geomeric's Enlighten as opposed to simply hitting Avatar-quality graphic fidelity and relying on Michael Bay 'Splosions™ to sell the game is a whole other story. At least for now we know that the software and design technology is there.

You can check out the rest of the interview with Dr. Chris Doran right here.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Xbo...ics-46763.html

Would be awsome if possible but then again benchmarks like these are always set before a new gen, I remeber someone claiming PS2 will be able to produce toy story 2 visuals before it's release.

[MjW]

He actually only says that lighting in next gen consoles could get close to Avatar quality.

The rest of the graphics is doubtful.

[mynd]

Just no.

[Fijiandoce]

He actually only says that lighting in next gen consoles could get close to Avatar quality.

The rest of the graphics is doubtful.

Just no.

enough said

this was posted (or something similar) a couple of months ago.

i said it in that thread and i'll say it here. it took thousands of processors hours to render a single frame. Avatar like graphics are a ways off.

[daLa]

Way too much hype about super powerful engines and next gen consoles with amazing capabilities, I hope we're not in for a let down.

[DeviousOne]

Won't happen.... Its like this topic comes up every other month lol

[Fon]

Way too much hype about super powerful engines and next gen consoles with amazing capabilities, I hope we're not in for a let down.

Matter of fact, we are.

[coolguy]

A home console these kinds of graphics wont happen for many years.....

[jlippone]

Even Avatar used quite a lot of approximations for it's lighting so yes, something similar might be possible..

Seriously in terms of general quality, no not even close.

[Sufi]

First two posts of this thread is the reason why sometimes I don't read the entire article and just read the first few posts to get the jist of it.

Yea, sounds about right.

[Bigdoggy]

yea, no one should fall for this "avatar like graphics" hype. look back at all the consoles you have played and remember the hype that followed them before they released the consoles. When those older consoles released, they were nothing, not even close to the hype that was surrounding them. imo while the games were awesome, graphic wise the hype NEVER matched up. but if EA is excited for the PS4, then the PS4 must have some easy to use tech, maybe more like a computer then odd tech.

This is what I think will happen with the PS4...

the graphics will get a boost but it wont be a dramatic boost, but a good size graphical boost. At the same time I believe we will see more performance and games will be running at 60fps at native 1080p including multiplayer games and maybe even MMORPG's. the PS4 will also have this game for sure during it's release.

- PlanetSide 2

If anything, I expect the PS4 to have this level of graphics maybe with good performance as well.

to get the "JIST" of what level I'm talking about, watch this planetside 2 video.




this next video the guy is in spectator mode.

[Sufi]

^Wow...I'm going back into PC gaming...

[D3seeker]

Avatar like graphics..... The amount of power and time it took to create Avatar itself, don't even.

[jj03]

Haven't sony said this shit before? I distinctly remember reading loadsa shit like this when the ps2 was pre launch...'graphics like the t2 movie' or something along those lines...

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[SomaXD]

Haven't sony said this shit before? I distinctly remember reading loadsa shit like this when the ps2 was pre launch...'graphics like the t2 movie' or something along those lines...

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

actually it was microsoft that officially claimed "toy story graphics" when hyping the first xbox.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-250632.html

"One of the basic premises of the Xbox is to put the power in the hands of the artist," Blackley said, which is why Xbox developers "are achieving a level of visual detail you really get in 'Toy Story.'"

Sony only stated ""The quality of the resulting screen image is comparable to movie-quality 3D graphics in real time."
It was the media that used the T2/Jurassic Park/Toy Story bit.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89876

I was curious as to where "Toy Story Graphics" began, and came across this gem...

Originally Posted by March 1, 1999:

PlayStation 2 Cometh After all the talk and speculation about the future of Sony's next console, Sony may be getting ready to unleash a gaming tsunami of epic proportions tomorrow when the company is expected to reveal new PlayStation 2 information at a developer's conference in Tokyo. It will be a full house packed with journalists and developers from around the world - and hopefully the show won't disappoint. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported in its Monday morning edition that Sony will introduce a new video game machine (reportedly called "PlayStation 2") before March 2000 featuring the Emotion Engine processor codeveloped by Toshiba and SCEI. Additionally, the machine will be able to play DVD movies. According to the report, even though it will be several times more powerful than Intel's Pentium III, it will cost less than a PC (which runs about 100,000 yen in Japan - about US$840). Because the new console will use DVD as its delivery format, it will increase data capacity per disc by seven to eight times to just under 5 gigabytes. Development of the Emotion Engine chip has cost Sony and Toshiba nearly 10 billion yen ($84 million) and is not just a move to become the dominant force in the video game market, but possibly to take over Intel and Microsoft's hold on the microchip market. A Sony executive, as quoted by the paper, said, "We take aim at the stranglehold on the chip/operating system market enjoyed by the Intel-Microsoft alliance." He went on to say that the major wars in the technology market will be fought over entertainment applications, not over business-related applications. The article goes on to hype the system's capabilities, saying that it will be able to produce images with the quality of Disney/Pixar's Toy Story (remember when Nintendo said the N64 would have Jurassic Park and T2-quality effects when the Project Reality was first announced?), and that it will be able to handle 50 times more 3D data than the Dreamcast. By Chris Johnston, videogames.com

But wait, that can't be it! Could it?

Originally Posted by Nov 10, 1998:

TOKYO - A report from Nikkei Electronics Wire says that Sony and Toshiba are working together on developing a chipset for Sony's next console, the PlayStation 2. Nikkei says that SCEI is planning to officially announce the PlayStation 2 to Japanese gamers later this month and predicts that the PS2 could be available by the end of next year. The chipset itself is set to be introduced at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference next February (an expo for chip makers). Composed of two chips, the chipset is made up of a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and a new RISC-based (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) processor. These two chips are believed to be for the PS2, although at this time there has been no official announcement regarding Sony's next machine. The 10,500,000 transistor, 250 MHz DSP will combine 14 accumulators for floating point calculations that will help in the math processing of rich 3D graphics. Another rumor has suggested that Sony's PS2 will use a more advanced form of 3D graphics called NURBS thus dropping the current method of creating 3D graphics though polygons. Additionally, the DSP will also contain a hardware MPEG-2 decoder. You may already know MPEG-2 decoders as the chips that decode DVD movies for your TV or PC. If this report is true, gamers may be able to watch new DVD movies on their TVs. NURBS (or Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline) is a technique that allows developers to specify 3D surfaces on object in an environment. Currently, gamers have only seen the use of this technology when viewing 3D automobile models on television. Characters in games could look as good as they do in Toy Story. Also running at 250MHz, the RISC microprocessor, using MIPS architecture, will be two-way super scaler, with more than 100 new multimedia extensions. Internally, the RISC chip will combine an 8K data cache, a 16K command cache, and 16K of internal RAM. In comparison, the 64-bit RISC-based SH-4 that powers the Sega Dreamcast, runs at 200 MHz. No word yet on what bit depth the new Sony/Toshiba chip will run at but we can safely assume it runs at 64-bit. By Yutaka Ohbuchi & Micheal Mullen

Hrm, two articles, one that looks kinda like PR.

Wonder what the official statement from Sony was?

Originally Posted by March 2, 1999:

TOKYO, March 2, 1999 -- Sony Computer Entertainment has developed the Graphics Synthesizer for the next generation PlayStation® incorporating a massively parallel rendering engine that contains a 2,560 bit wide data bus that is 20 times the size of leading PC-based graphics accelerators. Very high pixel fill rates and drawing performance is achieved only through the use of embedded DRAM process technology pioneered by SCE for use in advanced graphics technology. The current PlayStation introduced the concept of the Graphics Synthesizer via the real-time calculation and rendering of a 3D object. This new GS rendering processor is the ultimate incarnation of this concept – delivering unrivalled graphics performance and capability. The rendering function was enhanced to generate image data that supports NTSC/PAL Television, High Definition Digital TV and VESA output standards. The quality of the resulting screen image is comparable to movie-quality 3D graphics in real time. In the design of graphics systems, the rendering capability is defined by the memory bandwidth between the pixel engine and the video memory. Conventional systems use external VRAM reached via an off-chip bus that limits the total performance of the system. However in the case of the new GS, there is a 48-Gigabyte memory access bandwidth achieved via the integration of the pixel logic and the video memory on a single high performance chip. This allows orders of magnitude greater pixel fill-rate performance compared to today’s best PC-based graphics accelerators. When rendering small polygons, the peak drawing capacity is 75 Million polygons per second and the system can render 150 Million particles per second. With this large drawing capability, it is possible to render a movie-quality image. With Z-buffering, textures, lighting and alpha blending (transparency), a sustained rate of 20 Million polygons per second can be drawn continuously. This new architecture can also execute recursive multi-pass rendering processing and filter operations at a very fast speed without the assistance of the main CPU or main bus access. In the past, this level of real-time performance was only achieved when using very expensive, high performance, dedicated graphics workstations. However, with the design of the new Graphics Synthesizer, this high quality image is now available for in-home computer entertainment applications. This will help accelerate the convergence of movies,

[Tamao3013]

That Final Fantasy demo looks good enough for me. It literally looks prerendered.

[SomaXD]

to be honest... id love to just see more games looking like Killzone 3... seriously, hand that engine to every sony dev and let em go nuts... 3rd person action adventure, RPG, can you imagine how awesome those would look using a decked out KZ3.5 engine? given the ps4 processing power whatever it may be... (which would allow for larger level design... damn that alone is exciting)

[baho]

This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv4Boq4HLKU&hd=1 will be the norm 2 years into the next gen imo! So i do expect the top of the crop to be comparable to graphics such as those seen in CGI movies, comparable in looks not in the way those graphics were achieved!

[SHAZZMAZZ]

I think the PS4 should have a avatar like in the play station home and a game picture of ur favourite characters in games like the ps3 profile avatar and a custom profile picture of what ever u want just like on this website i think it s a awesome idea. Xbox live has a custom avatar and a game picture in poor quality so i think the PS4 account profile should have a very high quality custom avatar and a gamer picture and a custom personal profile picture i would even pay for it

[admartian]

It's all about "teh gfxx" these days isn't it?

They should focus more on interactive environment and worlds without having to serve a lowest common denominator limiting them. Which is why I wish both consoles lowest SKUs have ample drive space/capacity.

[D3seeker]

I think the PS4 should have a avatar like in the play station home and a game picture of ur favourite characters in games like the ps3 profile avatar and a custom profile picture of what ever u want just like on this website i think it s a awesome idea. Xbox live has a custom avatar and a game picture in poor quality so i think the PS4 account profile should have a very high quality custom avatar and a gamer picture and a custom personal profile picture i would even pay for it

Wrong use of 'avatar' my friend.

Sent from my TC970 (Wi-Fi) using Tapatalk 2

[Tamao3013]

Avatar was raytraced for hundreds of thousands of hours worth of time. Now compare that to rendering a frame in a very small fraction of a second. Not even comparable. They only used the movie Avatar for the comparison because it is the absolutely biggest hyperbole you could possibly come up with. This puts PM to absolute shame.

[jlippone]

Avatar was raytraced for hundreds of thousands of hours worth of time. Now compare that to rendering a frame in a very small fraction of a second. Not even comparable. They only used the movie Avatar for the comparison because it is the absolutely biggest hyperbole you could possibly come up with. This puts PM to absolute shame.

Actually Avatar was mostly rendered by using micro polygon rasterizer. (REYES)

They did use GPUs to ray-trace occlusion information as pre-computation for their image based lighting. (Using in-house tool named PantaRay).

Also I'm sure that accurate reflections etc, used tracing within prman.

[Tamao3013]

Awesome! For the longest time, I thought I was the only one who knew that movies aren't full raytrace! But what does micro polygon raster mean?

[jlippone]

Awesome! For the longest time, I thought I was the only one who knew that movies aren't full raytrace! But what does micro polygon raster mean?

Added link for previous post.


Basic idea in REYES (Render Everything You Ever Saw) is to tesselate polygon/curve patch until each polygon is around 1 - 1/4 pixels in size. (called micropolygon)
Then shading is performed on micropolygons and not on pixels. (This includes textures, displacement, lighting etc.)
In end render the shaded grid of micropolygons, quite fast as the micropolygons are either flat or Gouraud shaded during actual rasterization.
http://renderman.pixar.com/products/...nderman/2.html

There's some more additional information at Pixars site.
http://graphics.pixar.com/library/

Here's nice list on movies using Pixars Renderman REYES renderer..
http://renderman.pixar.com/products/...an/movies.html