Fried Food
Banned
aw yiss gimme all those graphics techniques!
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The Tomorrow Children (PS4, Pixeljunk guys) uses Cascaded Voxel Cone Tracing
- Thread starter Man
- Start date
inpHilltr8r
Member
Read the second PDF, it has the speakers notes which fills in a lot of the detail.
Hey, it's Dylan here from Q,
Thanks for checking out James' presentation, he put a lot of work into that to try and help people understand what is going on with our engine!
The game has freely deform-able geometry which is why right at the start we decided we couldn't go with the more standard graphics pipelines that need a lot of pre-baked information. However, we *did* want the very nice lighting that those pre-baked systems can give (like the lighting you are seeing in the Silicon Studios demo released this week).
When you guys see this game actually *running* in 1080p on your tvs with the lighting all simply *working* you are going to love it; dig into a mountain and the light spills around correctly, and the shadowing from things cast in all directions natually and realistically. It /almost/ looks like a Pixar movie at times and is the closest to that "rendered" ideal I've seen so far in an actual game (not a tech demo). Although I do have high hopes for Uncharted on the PS4!
Thanks for checking out James' presentation, he put a lot of work into that to try and help people understand what is going on with our engine!
The game has freely deform-able geometry which is why right at the start we decided we couldn't go with the more standard graphics pipelines that need a lot of pre-baked information. However, we *did* want the very nice lighting that those pre-baked systems can give (like the lighting you are seeing in the Silicon Studios demo released this week).
When you guys see this game actually *running* in 1080p on your tvs with the lighting all simply *working* you are going to love it; dig into a mountain and the light spills around correctly, and the shadowing from things cast in all directions natually and realistically. It /almost/ looks like a Pixar movie at times and is the closest to that "rendered" ideal I've seen so far in an actual game (not a tech demo). Although I do have high hopes for Uncharted on the PS4!
A closer look at that frame comparison, with and without async compute:
Though not explicit, it's worth observing that it basically made the compute work 'free' relative to the original frame - it disappeared completely into the cracks around graphics work during the frame.
More speculatively, the remaining 'gaps' and spaces in the graphics pipeline - from a relative lay person's perspective - makes one wonder how much more they could stuff in there
edit - as pointed out by wonderdung below, it's actually the inverse ... the pixel/vertex shader work is 'disappearing' into the gaps around the compute work!
Though not explicit, it's worth observing that it basically made the compute work 'free' relative to the original frame - it disappeared completely into the cracks around graphics work during the frame.
More speculatively, the remaining 'gaps' and spaces in the graphics pipeline - from a relative lay person's perspective - makes one wonder how much more they could stuff in there
edit - as pointed out by wonderdung below, it's actually the inverse ... the pixel/vertex shader work is 'disappearing' into the gaps around the compute work!
Thanks for the added detail.
You guys really accomplished a fantastic look. I'll admit when I saw the first trailer I was confused as hell at what the game was about, so I spent some time the day after it was unveiled gathering up all the info that was out there for the game. I'm glad I did, 'cause then it became one of my most anticipated games.
Hope it's as fun as it looks and sounds
:bows:
Can't freaking wait to play this on my PS4. The initial trailer got creepy at the end and I really dig the concept for the game. Also please release some high bitrate gameplay footage whenever possible. Would love to see a dev walkthrough type thing.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
The game looks phenomenal so much that its hard to believe its playable.
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
You, yeah you! where is my PixelJunk Dungeons?
I'll take this as a consolation prize, but I need that dungeon fix in PixelJunk format!
Hi, really apreciate this kind of post.
Congratulation for your game.
Also, do you think we could see a retail release?
Release information and types of release etc., are entirely up to Sony. Although, because this game is only online, an online-only release does make sense.
Thanks, this is the kind of comment I like to see because I am amazed daily by how it looks. The latest builds actually look a lot better than the footage in those videos now too because we're constantly tweaking and tuning.
The game is a bit of a crazy sandbox experience, we don't force you to do anything really and you can decide either collectively/collaboratively or egotistically to do whatever you want. You could just set up a picnic up in the hills if you like. (of course if everyone does that your beautiful vista might eventually become marred by the sight of the burning town in the distance, but hey, someone will do the work right?)
Thanks, this is the kind of comment I like to see because I am amazed daily by how it looks. The latest builds actually look a lot better than the footage in those videos now too because we're constantly tweaking and tuning.
The game is a bit of a crazy sandbox experience, we don't force you to do anything really and you can decide either collectively/collaboratively or egotistically to do whatever you want. You could just set up a picnic up in the hills if you like. (of course if everyone does that your beautiful vista might eventually become marred by the sight of the burning town in the distance, but hey, someone will do the work right?)
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
That sounds great.
How are internal devs feeling about the success of the PS4? Has is inspired more creativity and risk taking?
Callibretto
Member
Very excited for the game, so thank you for making it. Really like the idea that you can do whatever you want, whether it's mining and gathering resources, or city building sim, or even an action game.
The trailer and previews I've read simply make my imagination goes wild and I have to tamper my expectations in fear of overhyping myself. That said, I'm pretty excited for the action part of the game, defending town, fighting giant robots, and if what I saw in the trailer is true, building a robot and fight in one? That would be so cool.
Again, thanks for even making the game.
Oh, and please don't change the title. Tomorrow Children is a perfectly cool and catchy title.
nelsonroyale
Member
This will probably be the first online game I play since...
...I can't remember the last time I played an online game properly...Probably Quake 3!
Really love the concept and aesthetics. Definitely a breath of fresh air, along with Wild, from Gamescom.
Firstly thanks to you and the team for making this game and for coming here and updating us, the presentation and information on the technology is very impressive and I absolutely love the look of the game. Kinda like how a Tim Burton / Pixar movie would look, amazing.
The voxel lighting and clever use of SSR and approximation on 3rd bounce is incredible, the GPU compute work is a very clear indicator of the holes in the pipeline and huge improvements.
Question if I may, do you think this and GPU driven pipelines could deliver ~>100% improvement on render times, as the near 20% improvement example shown is a real eye opener?
wonderdung
Member
Though not explicit, it's worth observing that it basically made the compute work 'free' relative to the original frame - it disappeared completely into the cracks around graphics work during the frame.
More speculatively, the remaining 'gaps' and spaces in the graphics pipeline - from a relative lay person's perspective - makes one wonder how much more they could stuff in there
Not quite... these are grabs from a Sony tool. Blue is compute, orange is pixel, green is vertex.
The most interesting thing is how much compute they have vs how simple their scenes are. Which to me implies that the technique is not applicable to most games.
That's not really a criticism. The miniaturized aesthetic of this game is one of its most interesting parts, and the tech and aesthetic complement one another beautifully.
Edit: Also low occupancy in some passes means they may have quite a bit of room for further optimization.
I'm not sure where the rumour about changing the name came from? Someone on neogaf jumping to conclusions?
The name of the game is "The Tomorrow Children" and it ain't gonna change!
The alpha test will be a restricted sub-section of the game, primarily for stabilising our main synchronising systems and getting feedback on those. It's still a ton of fun but some of the world's rules will be slightly different in order to test stuff more efficiently - gravity is still down though.
The name of the game is "The Tomorrow Children" and it ain't gonna change!
The alpha test will be a restricted sub-section of the game, primarily for stabilising our main synchronising systems and getting feedback on those. It's still a ton of fun but some of the world's rules will be slightly different in order to test stuff more efficiently - gravity is still down though.
Chobel
Member
I'm not sure where the rumour about changing the name came from? Someone on neogaf jumping to conclusions?
The name of the game is "The Tomorrow Children" and it ain't gonna change!
The alpha test will be a restricted sub-section of the game, primarily for stabilising our main synchronising systems and getting feedback on those. It's still a ton of fun but some of the world's rules will be slightly different in order to test stuff more efficiently - gravity is still down though.
Is the beta for Japan only?
Oh wow, you're right. It's the inverse of my expectations about vs/ps:compute! So basically the opposite...the pixel/vertex work 'disappears' into the gaps around the compute work.
That is indeed a lot of compute work in the frame. Although I'm not sure about linear scalability with scene size vs voxel granularity or the size of the smallest voxel that you can tolerate in your world.
Actually our scenes have to deal with a huge amount of complexity (because 50+ users can build anything anywhere). The screenshots we have released are a basic town and a few of the mining shots - the users build out the towns to be what they want. The raison d'etre of the engine is to be as flexible as possible.
Because of the cascaded update the only type of game that it has difficulty with are those with fast camera movement (racing, aircraft etc). Although to be honest for those kinds of games I think the system would simply be tweaked to cope, we would definitely find a way.
Capcom's Deep Down is using a pre-baked (it creates them once as the level loads) version of very similar tech. They didn't have deform-able landscape and user content so there was no need for them to do it in realtime and of course their styling is different to ours, but I think the technique works exceptionally well for them too.
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
Is a dev really coming here and explaining shit for us about the game
Amazing!
Sold one copy, better have a Platinum, Dylan!
Amazing!
Sold one copy, better have a Platinum, Dylan!
SniperHunter
Banned
The game looks like cg
Very excited
Very excited
Thanks Dylan for the info.
Always great when a dev loves to talk about what their doing tech wise even if I only understand about two words per post. This is how you transfer the love for what you do over to the people who will end up loving what you've done.
Can't wait, looks brilliant and really intrested to see what you and others are going to make these boxes do this gen.
Always great when a dev loves to talk about what their doing tech wise even if I only understand about two words per post. This is how you transfer the love for what you do over to the people who will end up loving what you've done.
Can't wait, looks brilliant and really intrested to see what you and others are going to make these boxes do this gen.
WeAreStarStuff
Member
A closer look at that frame comparison, with and without async compute:
Though not explicit, it's worth observing that it basically made the compute work 'free' relative to the original frame - it disappeared completely into the cracks around graphics work during the frame.
More speculatively, the remaining 'gaps' and spaces in the graphics pipeline - from a relative lay person's perspective - makes one wonder how much more they could stuff in there
Ingueferroque
Banned
This game gives me special feelings.. this and Wild are at the top of my list.
GameAddict411
Member
i swear i thought the images are from real life plastic figures, later i found it that its not lol. incredible to say the least.
Man-is-Obsolete
Member
Sounds great, and good info Dylan! One of the details that no one seemed to pick up on much from the Pre-TGS thing was a Alpha that should be starting soon for this. Sounds like we won't have to wait long to see what this game is really about.
DecoyOctopus
Member
One of the most interesting games I've seen in awhile. Looks and sounds just stunning!
...also this thread needs more gifs!
...also this thread needs more gifs!
BruiserBear
Banned
Is this a third person action game? Almost looks like one of those army men games.
A closer look at that frame comparison, with and without async compute:
Though not explicit, it's worth observing that it basically made the compute work 'free' relative to the original frame - it disappeared completely into the cracks around graphics work during the frame.
More speculatively, the remaining 'gaps' and spaces in the graphics pipeline - from a relative lay person's perspective - makes one wonder how much more they could stuff in there
edit - as pointed out by wonderdung below, it's actually the inverse ... the pixel/vertex shader work is 'disappearing' into the gaps around the compute work!
Long story short the ACE's just made the PS4 1.84 TFLOP GPU render like a 2.3 TFLOP GPU & there is still some empty spaces left to fill in to get even more out of it.
A closer look at that frame comparison, with and without async compute:
Though not explicit, it's worth observing that it basically made the compute work 'free' relative to the original frame - it disappeared completely into the cracks around graphics work during the frame.
More speculatively, the remaining 'gaps' and spaces in the graphics pipeline - from a relative lay person's perspective - makes one wonder how much more they could stuff in there
edit - as pointed out by wonderdung below, it's actually the inverse ... the pixel/vertex shader work is 'disappearing' into the gaps around the compute work!
It's great that PS4 devs are already experimenting with async compute. In a few years, Sony 1st party will do wonders with it.
Cornbread78
Member
This looks awesome, almost like controlling a Tim Burton movie in real time.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Looks awesome! Always cool to see something new pop up!
Well we're coming up to one year post launch and Based Cerny dud say it'll take a couple of years for devs to really get the hang of asynchronous compute...and by god, if these results are anything to go by we're in for some remarkable visuals & art the gen.
This game, along with Wild and a couple of others, were what gave me a PS2-era vibe - really diverse, innovative & experimental titles.
This game, along with Wild and a couple of others, were what gave me a PS2-era vibe - really diverse, innovative & experimental titles.
wonderdung
Member
You can't just fill in the empty spaces unfortunately. In most of those white spaces they appear to be resource capping the SIMD and so they would have to optimize around that to get better results. The fun part about GCN optimization is that even if you do that you're not guaranteed it will perform better.
Edit: Something fun with that image is if you count the green boxes and multiply by 64 * 72 you'll get a pretty close estimate of the number of verts in that scene. Counting would be tough in the cases where they all blur together but it's still kind of an interesting side effect of these things being shared.
Dictator93
Member
While it does make sense to say that the code is running faster due to Async Compute, it is not apples to apples with it running "like a 2.3TF GPU."
This isnt "punching above its weight," but rather the GPU taking advantage of its 1.84 TFs better.
That's just words however. If every other system packing a GPU does not use theirs equally well one might just as well say the PS4 is 'punching above its weight'.
Callibretto
Member
it's a mix of genres from what I gather. you control it like typical third person game. but you can go and mine for resources, those resources can be used to better your town or buy equipment for you characters, and from time to time, there will be monster attacking your town and you go out defending your town in typical third person action game.
monster corpses can then be mined for resources. and the cycle goes on. not sure if there will be end game or not.
Sorc3r3r
Member
I was about writing something along these lines too.
This game, as some have already written, with Wild, are, for me, the titles to follow very closely.
But, beyond the catchy graphic, going deep into the explanation of the vision of this game, it becomes even more exciting.
Dare gamemakers!
Thats a brilliant challenge. Sony should use it at developer conferences.