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."

Comments

Seems to be a trend in games lately

[vasqzr]

I see this in lots of games these days.

It's a very neat effect. But I find it distracting, and my eyes are constantly trying to focus, and I end up getting a headache after a while.

Shadow of the Colossus

[tengennewseditor]

So Shadow of the Colossus is only 1/40th as complex as the real thing?

Re:Shadow of the Colossus

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Well, around noon, the shadow of the colossus can be very small indeed...

Letdown....

[otis wildflower]

... From the subject I was anticipating something about either the Colossus computer or the Colossus of Rhodes.

Or even something about this

Re:SoC

[gEvil (beta)]

SoC is a great game but I have to ask why they used the PS2.

Oh, I know the answer to this one! It's because the game was made by Sony. I think it's highly unlikely that they'd spend their resources developing a GameCube or xBox game. Although this game would've been awesome on either of those two platforms. I got through 9 or 10 of the colossi before getting my nice new 32" LCD HDTV. This game is just painful to look at on that screen now because all the flaws and uglies are so apparent.

Playstation 2 at it's best

[jshackles]

Games like SoC, with "tweaks" like this article suggests, remind me that the current generation of video game platforms is going to be dying in a pre-mature, marketing-driven, death.

While developers are finding things like this *still* that will optimize the code on a 5 year old system, tell me why I need to rush out and buy a PS3 right away? I keep hearing that the cell is hard to develop for. This same thing happened between PS1 -> PS2. A lot of the "fluff" games in the PS2 launch were not as good as some of the titles being released for the PS1, and I think we'll see a mirror of that between PS2 -> PS3

Re:Playstation 2 at it's best

[supabeast!]

"...tell me why I need to rush out and buy a PS3 right away?"

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.

Re:Playstation 2 at it's best

[Have Blue]

Well, imagine how good the game would look with the following changes:

• Instead of being designed to run anywhere between 15 and 60 frames per second, put out a solid 60fps at all times.
• Instead of having to trick around with "superlow" backgrounds and composited rendering, have a greater normal draw distance for fewer artifacts and a less complex engine. Not only can the graphics card keep up with this now, you can hold far more data in RAM and stream off a faster drive.
• Instead of manually placing scene boxes and using a hacked bloom effect, do true HDR rendering.
• Increase detail of shadow objects, fur shader hack, etc without noticeably performance cost.

Re:Playstation 2 at it's best

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Have you ever developed games for the PS2? I'm guessing that you haven't.

Although it only has 2MB of VRAM, it has a very high bandwidth bus for uploading things to that VRAM - the idea is that you setup huge DMA chains to repeatedly fill and refill the VRAM when drawing a frame (while the main processor is off doing setting up the DMA chains for the next frame), and this double buffering can be very very effective.

While 2MB of VRAM on a PC video card isn't very much, the PS2 is a fundamentally different architecture and the same metrics do not apply.

You seem to be talking from the perspective of someone who does not understand what they are talking about.

Too many visual effects.

[MaWeiTao]

People will likely disagree with me on this, but I'm convinced that these kinds of games are completely wasted being developed for a console. They really belong on a PC instead of being hindered by the limitations of consoles.

As for the light bloom, blurs and other effects, while producing a neat result, especially in stills I tend to find distracting during gameplay. I've seen several games with these kinds of effects and the majority tend to overdo it. It's like I have cataracts or something. Someone with good eyesight doesn't see the world that way. I realize they're going for a cinematic feel, but at least don't overdo it.

I think Guild Wars, for example, has a nice glow that adds to the visuals without overdoing it. Then again, some of the problems here may be due to the low resolution of the PS2.

As for motion blurs, I've never liked them especially in driving games. If the world starts blurring around you because you're driving too fast then you probably shouldn't be racing at all. Imagine if the world turned to a haze for Formula 1 or WRC drivers.

Despite that, I'm impressed by how much they reveal about the game. It's an interesting read.

Re:Too many visual effects.

[Brunellus]

As for the light bloom, blurs and other effects, while producing a neat result, especially in stills I tend to find distracting during gameplay. I've seen several games with these kinds of effects and the majority tend to overdo it. It's like I have cataracts or something. Someone with good eyesight doesn't see the world that way. I realize they're going for a cinematic feel, but at least don't overdo it.

Amen. "lens flare" effects are overdone to DEATH...I love how it seems that in games, all the "lenses" have nearly circular apertures, a bad problem with internal reflections/ghosting, and what look like dozens of air/glass interfaces. It seems to me that if you care enough to put flare/ghosting effects in, you should at least bother to make them believable (polygonal apertures instead of circular, effects of flare on overall image colour/contrast, etc).

Re:Too many visual effects.

[polyp2000]

Why should a game, any game be wasted on a console? If people want to put the time and effort into creating a good game, why shouldnt they do it? Your statement sound's kinda snobbish to me.

The great thing about consoles is that they are relatively speaking a stationary target, ie the technology stays the same for several years. Its nice to see that despite the age of the PS2 now that its developers are still manging to push the boundaries of the machines capabilities. Perhaps some of the skills learned from making more efficient use of console hardware could be translated to PC games. Lets face it develpers can be a hell of a lot more complacent on the PC platform, especially when Next-Gen 3d cards are being pushed by ATI or NVidia. Limitations and constraints breed creativity and that is a factor that can never be underestimated.

eww, you suck

[Ender Ryan]

Eww, you suck :)

I think SotC would have been a real letdown on any other console. The effects, which are nothing short of amazing, may have been used to cover up the lack of a huge poly-count in some cases, but they're really what gives the world in SotC it's beauty. The main character, I agree, does look kinda crappy. The horse isn't too bad. But the world looks absolutely amazing, and so do the Colossi.

The PS2 doesn't have the raw power of the Xbox or the Cube, but it is capable of some really amazing visual effects. It's really a shame that most developers haven't taken full advantage of it. OTOH, there's still some great games coming out on that ancient thing.

Re:This was via...

[ianpatt]

The entire thing is just an English translation of the original article at Game Watch: http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20051207/ 3dwa.htm. Posted there last year, actually.

Re:SoC

[Knos]

Maybe it's simply because you are meant to sink in this atmosphere of dread. I mean, it's bound to be voluntary for this particular universe to be almost devoid of any advanced lifeforms. The way you have to wander around in those deserts, making you feel like if you were even more dead than the one you are trying to revive. Even the colossi are ambiguous.. part machines part animals. Golems of some sort.

It does create more sensations than it tells a story.. I think it does it pretty well even.

The tech of the colossus

[Profound]

Maybe I've been playing Civ 4 too much, but after reading this title I immediately thought of Bronze working.