Quote: "Answer me this - what would they gain from pretending they're game looks better than it does? Hype? What about when they ship it and it looks like crap? Not gonna get good reviews."
This isn't the first time they've done this, and I very much doubt it's a last. Sony have a habit of showing CG footage of thier games; claiming it's being run by the console when the reality of the game is somewhat different.
If you've played the original Killzone then you'll know that the way in which it's presented make it look VERY good, most of the time your moving to fast to realise that in order to achieve the effect they have, the actual player models are in-fact quite low-polygon as is the entire environment. With the Playstation 2 they have a bonus of having 2 Graphics Pipelines to play with; this allows them to create Screen Effects without any speed issues.
So say you wish to do some Bloom Effect. On the PC/X-Box/GC you would create a Shader in order to do this, and it would take up valueable GPU power meaning you can render less polygons. For the Playstation 2, you simply use the 2nd Pipeline and you can devote that to your additional effect.
It's how the Playstation 2 is capable of quite ridiculous polycounts at times while still having a nice screen effect. Yet the problem is unlike Shaders you'll notice that you can only have one effect at a time. So it's a trade-off.
With the Playstation 3 however this is gone. They've changed thier development pipeline to a single rather than double graphics pipeline. This means everything they do WILL affect the overall speed and output ability of the console.
So while the original Killzone was capable of making the relatively low polygon world and characters fell more real though a screen effect; in order to do the same on the Playstation 3 your sacificing your overall polygon processing speed.
Another point to make are how many effects are being run in a single scene. If you look at Unreal 3, you have 64-bit Colour HDR (built-in feature of the RSX/GF6), you have parallax mapping (built-in feature of the RSX/GF6), you have a few glowing effects, etc..
On the whole while Unreal 3 looks impressive as hell, the fact kinda remains that it's using extremely complex shaders to achieve it's goals rather than a huge number of shaders.
Now a REALLY good example of this is .. in Unreal 3 the reason why you've not been shown scene of like 16 players onscreen at once in a Multiplayer game; is the simple fact that the Hardware it's currently designed for CAN NOT process that many real-time Shadows at a reasonable speed (for the depth being used).
Shadows in Unreal 3 are 1024x1024 Render-Targets, they have to be processed per Shadow, per Light Source.
Run through the Killzone 2 trailer, and you have close to 40-50 people onscreen at once; with Shader Hair, Parallax Mapping, Bloom, HDR, Particle Dust Effects, Real-Time Hi-Definition Multi-Light Source Soft Depth Shadows, oh and not to mention the AI going on in the background. Explosion effects, Tracer Bullets, Terrain Real-Time CSG, Huge Visual Distance.
Quote: "This is Sony's Halo-beater. They are not going to be using the same development tools as are available to you, Raven - someone who has to date, been unable to program a game in Dark Basic."
Chris I work for Microsoft, and no we don't get development hardware or software prior to the big industry names.
If a company like Valve, Epic, Square-Enix, etc. want to develop for the next generation consoles even Microsoft Game Studios won't get stuff before them.
Sony work the same way. See the biggest problem I have about the Killzone 2 demonstration is they claim it was Real-Time... but how come the development team didn't go up on stage like Epic did and SHOW; no this isn't some technology rolling demo of what we hope the console will be able to achieve. Epic physically controlled what was going on, on what can only be assumed at this point as the prototype hardware. If Gorilla Software aren't even willing to do that, then how can anyone be expected to believe them?
Furthermore Gorilla Software is an Australian developer right?
So why the hell was the whole Killzone 2 Rolling Demo developed by the same Scottish Company who did thier CG for the first game?
Quote: "As much as you try and pretend otherwise, you are not an industry authority - these guys are. As soon as Sony get some new hardware its going to go straight to the Killzone guys."
As I said above... even internal companies don't get hardware before the big names. At the same time yes, but not before. Preferencial treatment has always been given to companies who can bring in the big bucks; not to if your an internal company or not.
Another thing is, what the hell does my programming competence with DarkBASIC have anything to do with programming in any other language OR the fact that professionally I'm an Artist not a Programmer?
Quote: "No, you spend several weeks trying to track down the most stupid of bugs."
Fine smart-arse.. Develop an Application for the Apple Macintosh using PearPC; then try to use it on a real Apple Macintosh.
If you don't run in to porting issues, then I'd suggest you apply at Rare. As the reason that the games at E3 were still using Alpha hardware is because there are currently porting issues to the X-Box 360.
Quote: "I remember seeing those first shots of the G-Man and thinking - "No way. That's Toy Story graphics" That was several years ago now. I believe in the game industry's ability to blow my socks off."
That's just your opinion of what hardware was capable of. The G-Man and even Half-Life 2 images were never particularly impressive to me. (in-fact if you go back to during it's development you'll see a number of posts from me to that effect)
I didn't have a hard time believing that was possible.
Unreal 3 / Gears of War, I would say is really pushing these next generations consoles pretty much to thier limits without the experience that time provides.
Now this is my entire gripe really here. While maybe (and I mean slim chance in hell) Killzone 2 graphics, ai, etc. are going to be possible on the Playstation 3... the simple fact is. It isn't that powerful out-of-the-box.
It's like someone before DarkBASIC Professional is released showing a video of a Doom 3 style game that they've developed with a matter of a month with the Beta.
I'd be highly skeptical that Doom 3 is possible using DarkBASIC Professional; yet more over is my issue that a month is very very little time to get to know the hardware your developing for as well as put together a new engine, etc..
I mean we have to remember that Killzone at best is only a matter of what 5-6months old? Even 6months, I would say they would be pushing artists to create that sheer level of detail, get used to a new development pipeline, etc.. It all comes down to the sheer time that is spent.
Sure now I believe you could achieve Doom3 level of graphics in DarkBASIC Professional; but EVEN with this RAD System, you would still be looking at around a month, maybe 2 to achieve an engine that was not only running at a reasonable speed but also get it all done.
It's completely down to the complexity of what is trying to be achieved. I personally just don't believe it is possible... even the 70 man team resources of Epic took 2 weeks just to convert a small portion of Unreal 3.
Gorilla just doesn't have those kind of resources.
