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Gaming Beauty Is Only Pixel Deep
Thanks to NTSC-uk for its feature discussing what the new pixel and vertex shaders mean to this generation of videogames. The piece laments: "Looking back at the past few years, games have looked incredibly similar. And this is the main reason why: they all used the same tools", before going on to explain: "The hardware previously contained logic circuits to simply perform the operations needed by Gouraud and Flat shading, but now the fully Programmable Pipeline has introduced a whole new world of graphical effects for us all, limited only by the programmers' time and creativity", referencing "the water effects used in Super Mario Sunshine, cel shading effects used in Zelda, or the rippling water effects on Dead or Alive 3."
interesting and set at a reasonable level of understanding.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
The Gamecube doesn't have a programmable function pipleline for graphics effects - it has a very robust fixed function pipeline. The effects the author emphasizes in those three Gamecube Games were more than likely done on the CPU and not with a programmable GPU. While that doesn't diminish the look or technical achievement of those games it does throw water on the author's assertion that games all looked alike before GPUs because all fixed function pipelines give the same look to their output.
It wont mean the games will play better, feel better and act better. it wont make games any more interesting no matter how manytimes they rewrite that same story line.... We need games that explore new ideas, not better graphics. Hell im still playing wc3!
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That's like saying "because power tools are now popular, all buildings look the same". The reason why games are looking similar is that developers are sharing some of the more common code (as they should do). It's similar to when games first became color and all of them looked like blotchy squares. Over time the graphics start to vary. Give them time.
Better graphics and better physics don't make a game great. Better design does.
While developers continue to fail understand this simple fact, the games market will be shrinking .
More imagination, less fireworks.
Different gameplay experiences are not caused by games looking different. They come from different game designs.
Games aren't going to use the standard fixed-function pipeline any more- they're all going to use the same shader programs. There's only one "best" way to implement character model normal mapping, and that's polybump, which virtually everyone is using for upcoming games. There are only 2 ways to do shadows, shadow buffers or stenciling, and both of those are very common. The only exceptions are going to be games making really unusual style choices like Jet Set Radio Future. What's really going to differentiate games in the future is going to have to be something other than graphics and physics, as those fields tend to converge onto a single "one true implementation" as they evolve (for graphics it's photorealism, for physics it's something like Havok which is available for anyone to just drop into their games).
the water effects used in Super Mario Sunshine, cel shading effects used in Zelda, or the rippling water effects on Dead or Alive 3.
Wow, water effects, cell shading, and water effects? What an incredible breadth of effects available at the programmer's fingertips!
But I always bristle at the notion that "games lately look so much the same" and "there's no originality anymore, not like back in the day".
Here's the deal: the reason why so many games look the same is because for every innovative game you have 20 or so derivative titles that want to cash in on the popularity of the original. Though we like to fondly look back to the early days of video games and think that they were so original, the truth is that the same problem existed back then as well. I recently got one of those 200-in-1 NES emulators for the GBA, and let me tell you that the 20-to-1 ratio of crap to innovation still applies.
The author of this article makes another mistake: thinking that games will stop looking like each other with the advent of pixel shaders. Of course this is rediculous. I do believe that technology can enable new aspects of gameplay, but to think that pixel shaders are going to make people more creative is just plain wrong.
"the water effects used in Super Mario Sunshine, cel shading effects used in Zelda, or the rippling water effects on Dead or Alive 3."
The gamecube doesn't have shader hardware, it uses a fixed function approach with many texture stages. Granted, the flexibility afforded by a dozen or so texture stages is similar to simple pixel shader hardware but there are still fundamental differences (particularly in the ability to do texture indirection) that make real shaders far more flexible. The first two games mentioned above don't use shaders at all... this guy should do a bit more research.
I understand 3D graphics as well as you do, and half of the things you pick holes in there strike me as perfectly acceptable explanations, if slightly over-simplified. Just because you can show off doesn't mean you should.
I stand by all my points; though I'll only address the mathematical point:
The proof you indicated is a proof of triangulation. Triangulation only applies to closed 2D polygons. We're dealing with 3-space polygons who's cartesian projection does not always form a polygon or set of polygons. Subsequently the statement inquestion is indeed false.
On the subject of triangulation, there are many finite polygons who's triangulation requires an infinite number of triangles to construct. Subsequently, realtime 3D polygon based applications restrict what polygons can be presented and often incorporate failure cases.
The point is that treatments of mathematical subjects, including computer graphics and the article in question, should be presented with at least a minimal degree of rigor. I wouldn't expect proofs, but I do expect at least accurate and fairly precise statements.
You know, a game doesn't care about mathematical rules that much. Sure, you can't triangulate some weird non-planar polygons without changing their shape, but you aren't supposed to. Really, nobody cares whether that's a mathematically correct representation or whether the shape changes, it's fast to render, it's nothing noticeable, it works. After all, there's a high chance that polygon isn't supposed to portrait a polygon, but a part of an object that might not even have the same shape as the model. It's a simplified representation in first place. And you don't need to calculate a number down to the 100th decimal if your base values were approximations in first place.
You can argue all you want, fact is that the current system WORKS. If we were trying to simulate some event for prediction purposes or something there might be a point ndoing exact calculations, but in a realtime environment the first rule is to simplify everything far enough that it runs fast and still produces somewhat accurate results. You don't calculate things like turbulences or air movements in a shooter game since noone's going to notice the difference, anyway.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
To be honest mate, I couldn't care less. The article wasn't aimed at people like you. So there's no point in all that "pretentious shithead" stuff, leave it out man. At rasterisation where the shading model comes into effect, I was explaining that. It wasn't a massively-technically-anally-correct article, one merely written to give the less knowledgeable an insight into how these things work. Read forums, and all you'll read is things like "OMFG TEH BUMP MAPPING" and they have no knowledge of what's involved. This article was written for that purpose only. An article in-depth into mathematics would have no place on a gaming site (which is my primary interest) and it'd only turn people off the site, because uber-geeks like you are sadly in the minority.
So you're telling me that the gameplay is not directly affected by the graphics in a game like Rez for the PS2, where the entire gaming is a matter of presentation, a mixture of unique sounds and vector-type graphics? What, that game was too obscure an example for you? Then try this one on for size: the Doom 3 engine's per-pixel lighting and shadowing allows for an immersive gameplay environment since the player is constantly forced to decide whether to carry a flashlight to illuminate dark areas or to have a weapon in hand to fend off unseen enemies.
These two games are just off the top of my head; there are many, many games that use graphics as a way to enhance gameplay. graphics are important, and they are the main reason we're not still playing games on the NES.
Getting the article right doesn't have to make it any more complex or difficult to read. It should be at least technically correct if it purports to educate the reader in some way. At the absolute minimum, the author should omit details that they're not certain of.