Would you take someone off the street who happens to know how to sculpt clay and ask her to make 3d model on a computer?
Actually, yes. Once that person learns how to work their 3d application the knowledge transfers easily. Anyone can mash clay together, almost everyone can make a stick figure out of it but only an artist can make it look exactly the way it should look (for sufficiently complicated objects, that is). Knowing how detail is created, how anatomy works, etc is the important part, the tools are just the way to write it down. I've seen people go fluently between digital and "analog" art simply because the basic understanding of art applies to any tools.
The biggest problem with that transfer is that artistic ability and mathematics use different halves of the brain, an artist trains to use his right side as much as possible (since the left tends to abstract details away and thus mess up the result) while math needs the left one. That will probably end in severe confusion.
A problem I see is that it would probably be smaller filesize-wise to just store the resulting image instead of all the operations involved since a proper artist will do a VERY large number of strokes during the entire process. Never mind what happens when they photosource.
The first and foremost issue is describing the texture. It can get VERY difficult to describe a surface. Describing woodgrain is not enough, that'll just end with an artificial-looking block. You need to add construction details (e.g. nails), wear and tear and lots of irregular shapes to avoid monotony. Very few surfaces in a professional CG image use procedural textures, almost all of it is handpainted because procedurals look bad at their current state of development and developing procedurals that are complex enough to generate a good result would take months to make. Especially for irregular surfaces that aren't of a consistent texture (e.g. people) your algorithm would get complex as all hell because you'd have to account for every part of the surface.
Currently it's just VASTLY cheaper to paint textures by hand.
It can be used to generate textures down to any level of detail necessary.
Only if the material has been described to any level of detail necessary. More description means more work and more filesize so I don't expect the "quality" of the description to exceed what is visible in an average situation.
Virtual Reality is easy, mass appeal is the hard part. Nothing is dorkier than wearing a helmet while flailing your hands around while wearing boxing gloves^W^W cyber gloves. Well, except for LARP. That's really the bottom of the dorkiness barrel.
Oh, history will repeat itself. Question is, which history gets repeated? "Sony releases console and takes 90% of the console market"? "Former console market leader's next gen console fails to take the lead because all the devs ran away"? "Console fails completely and utterly because both the hardware and software are too expensive, even though they might have been the most advanced there are"?
I don't know about American parents but my parents would never agree to a 600$/€ present. They'd give me a part of the money and tell me to save up the rest myself. How many parents would be willing to give their children a 600$ present even if they could actually buy it (at the current shipment numbers the parents won't get one anyway)?
"Noone" when referring to buying something usually means a statistically insignificant minority will buy it but the market at large will not. Shit in a box would sell to some joker but that doesn't mean it would make sense in a store.
You say Nintendo failed because they made a mistake despite brand recognition and that Sony will succeed because of brand recognition despite making a mistake (high price and low shipment volume making it hard to make a profit on the PS3).
It's 400k for the US on a total shipment of 480k. Perhaps that guy meant 175k go to his chain. Because 175k to the US and 80k to Japan would leave a big discrepancy with that 400k total shipment you claim.
I've seen US publishers force games to be "relocated" (i.e. have their setting moved) to some US city even when it makes no sense (fighting a Soviet occupation of New York instead of some country actually occupied by the SU?). Wouldn't surprise me to see this turned into Hellgate New York. Okay, the game may be a bit too far along for that, I guess they'll leave Hellgate New York, Hellgate Miami and Hellgate LA for the sequels.
Slashdot Mirror
Would you take someone off the street who happens to know how to sculpt clay and ask her to make 3d model on a computer?
Actually, yes. Once that person learns how to work their 3d application the knowledge transfers easily. Anyone can mash clay together, almost everyone can make a stick figure out of it but only an artist can make it look exactly the way it should look (for sufficiently complicated objects, that is). Knowing how detail is created, how anatomy works, etc is the important part, the tools are just the way to write it down. I've seen people go fluently between digital and "analog" art simply because the basic understanding of art applies to any tools.
The biggest problem with that transfer is that artistic ability and mathematics use different halves of the brain, an artist trains to use his right side as much as possible (since the left tends to abstract details away and thus mess up the result) while math needs the left one. That will probably end in severe confusion.
But converting a bitmap to a procedural texture would be hella useful.
We call those "JPEGs", you may have heard of them.
A problem I see is that it would probably be smaller filesize-wise to just store the resulting image instead of all the operations involved since a proper artist will do a VERY large number of strokes during the entire process. Never mind what happens when they photosource.
The first and foremost issue is describing the texture. It can get VERY difficult to describe a surface. Describing woodgrain is not enough, that'll just end with an artificial-looking block. You need to add construction details (e.g. nails), wear and tear and lots of irregular shapes to avoid monotony. Very few surfaces in a professional CG image use procedural textures, almost all of it is handpainted because procedurals look bad at their current state of development and developing procedurals that are complex enough to generate a good result would take months to make. Especially for irregular surfaces that aren't of a consistent texture (e.g. people) your algorithm would get complex as all hell because you'd have to account for every part of the surface.
Currently it's just VASTLY cheaper to paint textures by hand.
It can be used to generate textures down to any level of detail necessary.
Only if the material has been described to any level of detail necessary. More description means more work and more filesize so I don't expect the "quality" of the description to exceed what is visible in an average situation.
Tell that to the Sega fans.
Wii = 41.1% (I think it will explode)
I don't think it's made by Nokia.
No, why?
Virtual Reality is easy, mass appeal is the hard part. Nothing is dorkier than wearing a helmet while flailing your hands around while wearing boxing gloves^W^W cyber gloves. Well, except for LARP. That's really the bottom of the dorkiness barrel.
Oh, history will repeat itself. Question is, which history gets repeated? "Sony releases console and takes 90% of the console market"? "Former console market leader's next gen console fails to take the lead because all the devs ran away"? "Console fails completely and utterly because both the hardware and software are too expensive, even though they might have been the most advanced there are"?
I guess Sony stock can only go up on launch, it has suffered enough from Sony's recent mistakes.
I don't know about American parents but my parents would never agree to a 600$/€ present. They'd give me a part of the money and tell me to save up the rest myself. How many parents would be willing to give their children a 600$ present even if they could actually buy it (at the current shipment numbers the parents won't get one anyway)?
Every time I hear about crack legal teams I want to grab a rifle.
A paramilitary force? Will they count as enemy combatants in twenty years?
A dictator won't hate the government but the rest of his country most likely will.
"Noone" when referring to buying something usually means a statistically insignificant minority will buy it but the market at large will not. Shit in a box would sell to some joker but that doesn't mean it would make sense in a store.
Release first, patch later? I hope they don't expect everyone to have their PS3 hooked up to the internet, would suck to need a patch you can't get.
Well, the taste is comparable...
I think 4 units is much more than they will actually have (if you don't count the ones reserved for preorders and the ones sold to employees).
Hm, if they start doing that, how long until mothers get paid to name their children "Playstation" or we see PS3 ads on gravestones?
Anyone who really wants a PS3 that badly would have pre-ordered.
Most stores refused to give out more than a handful of preorders.
GTA1 at least is a DOS game. I think DOS emulation is pretty available under Linux.
You say Nintendo failed because they made a mistake despite brand recognition and that Sony will succeed because of brand recognition despite making a mistake (high price and low shipment volume making it hard to make a profit on the PS3).
It's 400k for the US on a total shipment of 480k. Perhaps that guy meant 175k go to his chain. Because 175k to the US and 80k to Japan would leave a big discrepancy with that 400k total shipment you claim.
I've seen US publishers force games to be "relocated" (i.e. have their setting moved) to some US city even when it makes no sense (fighting a Soviet occupation of New York instead of some country actually occupied by the SU?). Wouldn't surprise me to see this turned into Hellgate New York. Okay, the game may be a bit too far along for that, I guess they'll leave Hellgate New York, Hellgate Miami and Hellgate LA for the sequels.