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The Tech of the Colossus
Via a Cathode Tan post, a gloriously in-depth look at the technology behind the PS2 title Shadow of the Colossus. From that article: "In games such as DOOM3 on the PC, the model used for generating the shadow volume is almost equivalent to the character itself. But with SOTC, in order to speed this up, we made use of a simpler model with much fewer polygons in. The main character generally consists of 3,000 polygons, but the colossus can be around 18,000 polygons, depending on the type. But the model used for shadow generation will contain a substantially lower amount than this. For example, the simple model seen by the player will probably only use 1/40th of what the original model contained."
"SoC is a great game but I have to ask why they used the PS2. "
Are you joking?
The Xbox couldn't handle SoC. The GC maybe.
The only thing the Xbox hardware is good at is bumpy/shiny multipass effects. Outside of those types of effects it is significantly weaker than the PS2. That's why games like Halo that have crappy engines but things like the shiny main character are touted so much by Xbox/PC fans.
The PS2 is amazing fucking hardware. It is a testament to Sony's graphic prowess that the brute force Xbox which was designed two to three years after the PS2 has been canceled while the PS2 is still flying off the shelves with games like SoC and Burnout looking better than anything on the Xbox.
Awww...did I hurt some Xbox fan's feeling.
So sorry...
But, hey, what do I know, it's not like I've written graphics engines for multiple PS2/GC/Xbox titles or anything like that.
"Texture quality. The PS2 has always had a deplorably pathetic amount of video RAM, and it shows - especially in big games like SoC where the same tiny aliased texture is reused and remapped all over the place. The PS2 has had a lot of really, really fun games that were just painful to look at because of this, and since Sony actually has competition this time around, they've been forced to give developers enough VRAM to make games a hell of a lot less ugly."
Please stay the fuck out of console technology discussions.
Why the fuck do idiots like you feel like every console article is your opportunity to prove what a fucking retard you are to the world.