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Graphics Software Entertainment Games

PGR3 Achieves Near Photo Realism 121

Posted by Zonk from the preeeeetty dept.
rtt writes "After some accused them of faking screenshots, Project Gotham Racing 3 developer Bizarre Creations have released some more information to prove their critics wrong. Thanks to the extra grunt of Xbox 360, trackside buildings are covered in 1024x1024 textures that are so detailed, they really do look like almost photo realistic. From the article: 'This week, the debate moves on to Textures. Thanks to the extra grunt of the Xbox 360's ATI-designed Xenos GPU, the trackside eye candy is clothed in super-sharp 1024x1024 textures, rendered in astounding detail.'"
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PGR3 Achieves Near Photo Realism More

PGR3 Achieves Near Photo Realism

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  • Redundancy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Elledan ( 582730 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @01:39PM (#13087612) Homepage

    "rtt writes "After some accused them of faking screenshots, Project Gotham Racing 3 developer Bizarre Creations have released some more information to prove their critics wrong. Thanks to the extra grunt of Xbox 360, trackside buildings are covered in 1024x1024 textures that are so detailed, they really do look like almost photo realistic. From the article: 'This week, the debate moves on to Textures. Thanks to the extra grunt of the Xbox 360's ATI-designed Xenos GPU, the trackside eye candy is clothed in super-sharp 1024x1024 textures, rendered in astounding detail.'""

    Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department :P

    • Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department :P

      Welcome to the marketing department :D

    • Re:Redundancy (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Don't you get it? That was the whole point of the summary. I shall demonstrate ...

      You shall buy Project Gotham Racing 3. You shall buy Project Gotham Racing 3. You shall buy Project Gotham Racing 3. You shall buy Project Gotham Racing 3. You shall buy Project Gotham Racing 3. You shall buy Project Gotham Racing 3.
      Geddit? Are you going to ... buy Project Gotham Racing 3 now?

    • Re:Redundancy (Score:5, Funny)

      by yotto ( 590067 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @02:22PM (#13087820) Homepage
      They're just saving time and duping the article from the start.
    • I just think it's a compression technique aimed at getting as many dupes of the front page as possible.

  • Give (Score:3, Insightful)

    by News for nerds ( 448130 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @01:43PM (#13087629) Homepage
    me. in-game. non-replay. scenes. already.

    A texture file which you can import from an actual photo image makes a news story these days. /. as usual.

  • Wow! (Score:5, Funny)

    by chman ( 746363 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @01:44PM (#13087640)
    Even the reflection of the SUV is faithfully recreated in game! Stunning! Seriously, couldn't they have photoshopped it out? Other than that, the screenshots they've been showing have been very impressive, and the PGR gameplay is great fun. Should help shift a few X360s if it really is a launch title.

    • Re:Wow! (Score:5, Funny)

      by FinestLittleSpace ( 719663 ) * on Sunday July 17, 2005 @02:09PM (#13087758)
      Fucking hell. Didn't see that. That is some bloody lazy texturing.
    • From the article:
      "You'd swear that was an actual photo, though I would assume it is just really high-quality artwork."
      That's pretty darn high-quality. I sure couldn't draw that nice of a reflection in MS Paint. They must have some real talented Photoshop artists up in Redmond.
      • Most texture artists nowadays use photos extensively, sure there's still a lot of handwork in the textures but without the photos they wouldn't be the same.

  • Wow (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Parham ( 892904 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @01:46PM (#13087646)
    I was astonished when I saw the pictures. The pictures do look real, until you realize the repetition. Check out this image [bit-tech.net] to get an idea of repetition. It looks real, but only if you look at half the image. Pretty nice still!
  • From the summary:
    Thanks to the extra grunt of Xbox 360, trackside buildings are covered in 1024x1024 textures that are so detailed, they really do look like almost photo realistic.

    From the article quote in the summary:
    'Thanks to the extra grunt of the Xbox 360's ATI-designed Xenos GPU, the trackside eye candy is clothed in super-sharp 1024x1024 textures, rendered in astounding detail.'"

    Now if only someone would reveal the texture resolution of those trackside buildings. It must be really high. Lik

  • Why so hard to believe? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17, 2005 @01:55PM (#13087692)
    I don't see this would be hard for folks to believe.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understand graphics programming: high-rez textures are relatively easy. It's getting the light in the gameworld to behave dynamically and realistically and to interact with those textures realistically that is the hard part and requires serious programming skills.

    I could be 100% wrong, so, anyone with some insight care to elaborate or clarify?
    • They mentioned in the article that there will also be a specular map, a bump map, and an 'index layer' which I assume just describes what shader to use for an effect.

      This should give a lot of detail, but not any more than what's already been seen in the Unreal 3 screenshots [unrealtechnology.com]. And we've already seen video capture of that engine months ago...

      Then again, the first PGR looked really good, and was quite fun to play. It's just that this isn't the first time seomthing of this detail has been done.
    • Lighting isn't all that hard when there are only cars in the game. A car has no complicated lighting behaviour. Sure, it can have a coloured reflection but that's pretty much it, the surface is still pretty close to mathematical models. When you have humans, that's where it gets interesting since flesh is not a homopgenous material and it's translucent so the light actually reacts to all the structures that are under the skin. Plus it deforms even when the player does not ram into a wall. Humans are just va
    • It's getting the light in the gameworld to behave dynamically and realistically and to interact with those textures realistically that is the hard part and requires serious programming skills.

      That might be the case for more 'general-purpose' textures being used in a game such as a first-person shooter, but I imagine that a texture of, say, the side of a fire-station in a driving game is likely to be used in one place only - on the side of a fire-station.

      Since it's photo-sourced, most of the 'correct' lig
      • You don't use DXT5 for 1024x1024 textures, you only use DXT5 for textures with transparency and you just don't do that on a 1024x1024 texture unless you want a coder to strangle you. The lower loss won't be as visible on a 1024x1024 anyway so you can safely use DXT1 for that. That's what Unreal Tournament 2004 does, it also uses textures of that size.
      • Doesn't PGR use the correct time of day though?

        that means light from different angles and different colors and amounts.

        I havn't played but I remember the DC game MSR used the time.

  • Only Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dipo ( 224074 ) on Sunday July 17, 2005 @02:00PM (#13087720)
    Big Textures don't make games,
    they only make pictures.
    • But you don't need texture artists, it would be awsome if all reality games could just take pictures and not do any work.

      No modelling, no animations, no mapping.

      Put the art back in games. Only if you want something diffrent from reality should artists be employed.
      • Get back to reality. You can't just snap a photo and slap it on a game asset, there's a LOT of cleanup needed to make it look good. Stuff like making it tileable for repeating textures, removing lighting information since it would conflict with the ingame lighting, removing errors and objects that shouldn't be there, etc.
    • No, but they do make for some very nice visuals that have a far lesser impact on performance than trying to model everything with polygons does. World of Warcraft is a great example - slash the polygon budget, let textures and GPU tricks do a lot of the work, and the developers can spend a whole lot more time building an immersive game than they can when they're trying to model detailed scenery. This should work especially well in a racing game, because the scenery is incidental and the player isn't too lik
      • You forgot stuff like Doom 3 or Unreal Engine 3. Both make fairly low-detail models look like they have a high polygon count with some textures and shaders.
    • "Big Textures don't make games, they only make pictures."

      Uh... right. But we *are* talking about those pictures, not the game. We're nerds, we find thetechnical stuff interesting.
    • And how does PGR1 and/or PGR2 in any way make you think Bizarre won't make a great game? Your post sounds like some kind of cliche gameplay over graphics argument to me, but that's a ridiculous complaint to make for a PGR game. We already know the gameplay is going to be freaking amazing since it's a PGR game - there's no news in that.

      That doesn't mean there won't be some great new gameplay features [xboxcore.com] in PGR3, of course. But implying that the gameplay might not get the same attention as the graphics is ridic

    • Re:Only Pictures (Score:3, Informative)

      by drewmca ( 611245 )
      Right, and pre-rendered CGI movies don't make games, they only make cut scenes.

      Funny how everyone gives Killzone 2 the benefit of the doubt in the gameplay department based on a shitty first game, while these guys get the "eyecandy" cold shoulder, despite 2 really good, well-playing games in a row.

      Not saying you're looking at Killzone the same way, more responding to the general tone here on /.
  • I may be wrong here, but in the past 10 years or so of video game development, I haven't seen many improvements in the subtleties of the environment.

    Let's take [generic street racing game]. The textures have gotten upgrades in terms of detail. Sure I can see the sides of these buildings as I fly by them at a simulated 150 miles an hour... not that I see very much of them, but they are becoming considerably more detailed. But there's still no traffic whatsoever. I mean there's the occassional pickup truck, and every now and then a semi, but you just don't see a traffic jam or a motorcycle gang.

    Then there's [generic circuit racing simulation]. The cars are looking absolutely stunning, and the details of the track are becoming even more impressive... but again, something seems to be missing. You don't see pit crews, audience, or any detail more finite than the race track and the cars.

    Don't get me wrong, what they're doing is impressive, but at a (simulated) couple of hundred miles per hour, you don't pay attention to the fact that the textures on the fire station are at 1024x1024. In fact... dropping the res down 480x480 probably wouldn't be too noticable for most users, even those with proper HDTVs.

    One could argue that at those speeds, one wouldn't notice many of these details, but many would add something to the total experience.

    It seems to me, though, that the use of these resources would be better utilized by making the experience more satisfying. Oh well.
    • Other traffic wouldn't make much sense in a PGR-style racing game, but the developers at Bizarre are adding crowds all over the track in PGR3 that respond to your actions (including running in terror if you slam into a barrier they are behind). These are race context specific, too, so that the bigger the race the bigger the crowds you will see. No real photos of these crowds have been released of these crowds yet, but at least the developers are striving to make the world feel less empty than it has in the
    • Then there's [generic circuit racing simulation]... You don't see pit crews, audience...


      Gran Turismo 4 and Forza have both of those.
    • But there's still no traffic whatsoever. I mean there's the occassional pickup truck, and every now and then a semi, but you just don't see a traffic jam or a motorcycle gang.

      You should play one of the Burnout games. Not only is there lots of traffic, you're going towards it head on.

    • It seems to me, though, that the use of these resources would be better utilized by making the experience more satisfying. Oh well.

      Others have already commented on your other points, so I'll address this. What would make a game experience "more satisfying" that could be achieved by under-utilizing the GPU? In a racing game, it's all about physics (usually by implementing Pacejka's Magic Formula [racer.nl] (and yes, that's really the name)), which are not going to be pushed to the GPU. For example, Forza Motors

      • You exemplify my point.

        The financial resources that are being used to develop 1024x1024 graphics, I think, would be better used making the game engine itself (including the phsyics) absolutely incredible.

        Sure programmers are expensive, but so are graphic artists.

        I'd also like to point out that theoretically its possible to spare some cycles from GPU for general purpose calculations (such as the physic engine). Of course, I've not programmed for the X-Box 360, so I don't know the feasibility of this
        • PGR3 is a big budget system seller game, just like the previous two were (the original was the second Xbox game to reach one million sales, right after Halo 1). There is no gameplay tradeoff in spending lots of money on beautiful graphics. Even if the budget wasn't huge to begin with, it would arguably be in MS' best interest to spend the extra money to make its launch games graphical standouts. They need to counter Sony's lies about the 360 being "Xbox 1.5", and a gorgeous PGR3 will partially do just that.
    • generic street racing game: Driver (ok, only if you count as racing running from the police :> )
    • And also something about details beyond the track: Road Rush 3D (also with traffic btw) had some sort of "3 stage" scenery: first you see the city as a static background, then it shifts into intermediate phase, than you drive trgough it and at the time something else is at the horizon.

      Makes you wonder that thos could be done with PSOne...(also Driver of course)
  • So why dont they just show a movie of a car crashing into one of the buildings? should be fairly easy to do. Until then I cry FAKE.
    • Fake?

      This: http://www.bit-tech.net/content_images/news_image s /mtv_sagaris2.jpg [bit-tech.net] doesn't look realistic enough to convince me that they faked it.

      Who the hell cares what it looks like. Is it fun to play? Is it $350 (Xbox 360 + overpriced game disc) more fun than the racing game I have from 7 years ago? Too bad nobody has announced a console with next-generation improved gameplay yet. Somehow we're supposed to get all excited because Microsoft is giving us a box that can play what our PC from 2003 is capabl

      • Too bad nobody has announced a console with next-generation improved gameplay yet.

        Revolution?

        • Nintendo has hyped next-generation gameplay for their Revolution console, but they haven't actually shown anything to demonstrate this (and in fact their descriptions sound closer to "last generation gameplay", in that they want to make games really simple for the relatively small group of nongamers out there). So "announced" might be too strong of a word...
    • I would too. Those screens may be going through the xbox video chips, but that doesn't mean its producing those images at 60fps or has things like collision detection or competitor AI running at the same time.

    • Probably since the PGR series doesn't really let you hit buildings, so it wouldn't be remotely easy for Bizarre to show that. But nothing I've seen so far looks too different from the earliest video [xboxyde.com] they released (running at merely 25% of full power, too). Bizarre's track record for honesty should also stand for something - if they show off the game's looks, that's what it is going to look like at a minimum. That's always been the case.

      And as impressive as these textures are, what Bizarre is doing with the
  • That with consoles capable of more than even top end computers, what will become of PC gaming? (Much less the PC itself)
    • What gives you the idea that top end computers aren't capable of this?
    • Its status quo . New Console come along and Humiliate PCs , PCs improve and humiliate console , new console arrives humiliates PC ,And on and on and on and on
      • except this round, they haven't come close to "humiliating" PCs.

        frankly, as long as consoles are DRM-crippled, they cannot even hope to compete with PCs on any level.

        people would never knowingly buy a computer that is crippled to only do what its true owners want (i.e. not you).

        PCs will be around loooong after the crooked console business is bankrupt.
        • console != computer

          A console is made to do one thing: play games. If it's difficult to run a *nix server on it, who cares?

          PC gaming experience = insert disk, install game, register, patch, possibly update drivers, play game.
          Console gaming experience = insert disk, play game.

          Which one is crippled?

          • A console is made to do one thing: play games. If it's difficult to run a *nix server on it, who cares?

            I don't want to run a LAMP server [wikipedia.org] on a game console; I want to make my own games. Where do I start?

            • You contact a company selling development kits (most likely MS/Sony/Nintendo) and apply for a kit. They'll probably tell you to get lost because they doubt you can properly keep trade secrets or make anything worth a damn on the system. Well, unless you have some (commercial-quality) PC games to show, that would impress them enough to approve.
              • Or you get a GBA or DS and use a homebrew kit with a Flash cart.

                Less than $100 depending on size, and some of the legal, non-Nintendo-owned devkits are actually quite complete. Plus, commercial game companies often hire the better homebrew people on handhelds; I've known several who were picked up.

            • Net Yaroze
        • "frankly, as long as consoles are DRM-crippled, they cannot even hope to compete with PCs on any level."
          Riiight. Console games have consistently outsold PC games for many years because they're so crippled and inferior. Maybe it hurts your mind to comprehend this, but some people buy and play games for fun, not for bragging rights or the ability to install Linux on their game system of choice. Frankly, as long as PCs have such a limited selection of games and surprisingly non-versatile control setup, they
    • Call me when that happens.

      This stuff is possible on mid-range computers.
      • Eh, I dont know what you base the mid-range statement on, because most of the mid-range computers where I live can barely run UT2004 on medium. And the ones that can run it well cost at least slightly more than the price the 360 is going for.
        • The store I usually shop at has a base system for 185, that plus a 100$ graphics card would run UT2004 at max detail. And probably Battlefield 2 without a hitch.
          • You'd never run Battlefield 2 with a $100 graphics card "without a hitch", that's an extreme overstatement. I run it now on a 6600GT and I still have problems (as do most others), so please tell me where I can find this magic $100 card :)
            • That's strange, a 6600GT should run it at max detail, my 6800 (no GT) certainly does and it's not that much better than the 6600GT.

              I know it runs playable (slight problems but you can still aim and even snipe, lag's a much larger problem) on a Radeon 8500 so a 9800 or something in that league should run it flawlessly (at minimum detail that is but hey, who said anything about max detail?). A 9800 is slightly above 100$, if you don't want to pay that much use a 9600.
              • You either have a beast of a computer, or don't play on large servers (24+ players) at all. I run Low/Medium to maintain at least 40fps while I play. I know many other players who have 6600GT's, and even a 9800Pro AIW, and have the same performance issues I have. Maybe your gauging performance differently than I am, but performance to me is upwards of 40fps steady throughout action.
                • I actually haven't tried my own system online yet (I'm behind a HTTP-only proxy which is really annoying) so my only online results are with the comp of my father, 1.5GHz Ahlon, 512MB RAM and Radeon 8500, it was playable even on 64 player servers with the exception of the ranked-server lag spikes we all hate so much. I don't know what framerate that was, it was certainly pretty low but to me the freamerate is high enough if I don't have any problems hitting stuff. My own system is a 3000 (dunno what clock r
          • Perhaps the parent shops in different shop...which is in different country...which in turn is in different continent? This isn't "Slahsdot. News for US Nerds. Stuff that matters in US, you know" ;P But really, if for example I want to buy anything here, I must multiply the price by 2...
        • Have you seen how much computer you can get for $300? And PC monitors are way cheaper than HDTVs.
      • Yeah, it's possible...but not many do it (scaling back etc. things...)...and that means also that a lot of power doesn't go to waste, nice thought IMHO.
  • 'till I see the game running. Those images look very nice indeed, but I'm not getting excited untill I see real live screenshots of the game iteself running on real live 360 hardware.
    The textures in GTA:San Andreas look almost as good in isolation. Whislt I can't say the graphics in that game are bad, in fact they're very nice considering the age of the game enigine, it 'aint photo realistic.
    We've been hearing about photorealism in games for a long time now, ever since the birth of the CD rom, but it's yet
    • And even then, why should playing a game where the buildings look photorealistic really make anyone excited? I mean it's a racing game. Playing it will entail watching your car, the road, and the other cars, not staring at fine rusting of the 10th floor fire escape.

      I'm curious when the game industry will wake up and realize that being able to add all these details does not make games better. I'm convinced in a world with games that all are able to mimic the real world in every detail it will be the ga
  • Who cares how nice the buildings look if the cars look like crap? Feels like different people are doing the cars and buildings, the car designers wouldn't know subtlety if it poked at them.

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Beautiful, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nunchux ( 869574 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @02:27AM (#13091560)
    I don't know anything about what the goal is, but beautiful backgrounds and models don't mean much if they're static and if you can't interact with them as in life. I'd rather see processing cycles dedicated to creating a sprawling city where no buildings are repeated... Or, as his is a racing game, making crashes as realistic as possible, so you feel like you're hitting a real physical object (and damaging that part of your car.)

    No more games where the edge of the road is a giant wall, and where your car is a uniform block that runs until it hits something and explodes.
  • If you slap a large photo of a building on a texture, then it will be photo realistic as long as the geometry is fairly flat, and you don't get too close.
  • Let's do some math, shall we?

    1024*1024 texture * 4 bytes per pixel (1 per channel = 32 bit) * 4964 textures / 1048576 (bytes in a megabyte) = 19856 megabytes = 19.390625 GB of data.

    19.3 GB won't fit on a Dual-Layer DVD. What does this mean?
    1. Less than half the textures are going to make it in-game
    2. Not all the textures in that photo (and thus the game) are 1024x1024
    3. Compression

    While 2 is probably what the devs are going to choose, I certainly hope that they don't use 3. Most compression sc
    • Modern video hardware supports in-memory compressed textures. I'm guessing the ATI chip supports the DTX standard natively, which offers variable compression rates depending on how you wish to allocates your bits for alpha channels, and what final quality you want. So, your calculations are a bit off (by at least a factor of 4), I'm afraid.

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