Post by: KAGE360 on October 05, 2006, 08:47:00 AM
QUOTE
One of the most interesting talks at Londons GDC (Games Developers Conference) this week came form one of the lesser known companies called Allegorithmic, who claim they will be able to reduce texture file sizes in games by up to 70%.
Their new programs, that they hope development artists will soon be using as an industry standard, are called ProFX and MaP Zone 2. Their ambition is to keep the graphical quality of game textures at the same standards as current games, whilst dramatically reducing the amount of data required for the game to work.
Their new programs, that they hope development artists will soon be using as an industry standard, are called ProFX and MaP Zone 2. Their ambition is to keep the graphical quality of game textures at the same standards as current games, whilst dramatically reducing the amount of data required for the game to work.
QUOTE
Confused by the fact that I hadnt heard about this technology before, I spoke to one of the men behind it directly - Dr Sébastien Deguy. He assured me that there were no catches with his system, that if a game contained 1GB of textures he would be able to reduce that to 300MB and lose no quality. When I asked why everyone wasnt using the program at the moment he explained it was due to people needing to be retrained in learning a new system. He was optimistic however, that soon all games companies will be using their new texture tools.
So what are the implications for you and I? In terms of traditionally packaged games that come in boxes, there probably wont be much difference. Dr Deguy argues that if textures are smaller in file size and easier to create, then next-generation companies will be able to create even more textures for the games. We may then see a big leap forward in how richly detailed games are in the future as they triple the variety of textures the game includes.
So what are the implications for you and I? In terms of traditionally packaged games that come in boxes, there probably wont be much difference. Dr Deguy argues that if textures are smaller in file size and easier to create, then next-generation companies will be able to create even more textures for the games. We may then see a big leap forward in how richly detailed games are in the future as they triple the variety of textures the game includes.
http://www.bit-tech...._be_70_smaller/
i really hope this catches on for many reasons. Not only should this help anyone's concern about DVD-9 being enough, it could also support more detailed textures and a bigger veriaty of them
Post by: JustDanMI on October 05, 2006, 09:31:00 AM
Post by: KAGE360 on October 05, 2006, 09:34:00 AM
QUOTE(JustDanMI @ Oct 5 2006, 11:38 AM) 
I like the fact that they can make the arcade games look even better now that they can get better graphics in less space.
yup. like it was mentioned in the article these techniques are already being used in Roboblitz while also using precederal synthesis, they are able to get an unreal engine 3 game on the live arcade
Post by: twistedsymphony on October 05, 2006, 09:56:00 AM
It looks like compression techniques on all fronts has taken giant leaps forward since last gen
-the VC-1 codec is capable of putting HD videos in the same space as SD videos in MPEG2
-Improved real time rendering reduces the need for videos to almost nothing
-Audio compression has almost doubled in ability since last gen
-And now Textures...
I'd be curious to see how much they estimate existing titles (both current and last gen) would shrink using these techniques...
Post by: KAGE360 on October 05, 2006, 10:02:00 AM
QUOTE(twistedsymphony @ Oct 5 2006, 12:03 PM)
Awesome...
It looks like compression techniques on all fronts has taken giant leaps forward since last gen
-the VC-1 codec is capable of putting HD videos in the same space as SD videos in MPEG2
-Improved real time rendering reduces the need for videos to almost nothing
-Audio compression has almost doubled in ability since last gen
-And now Textures...
I'd be curious to see how much they estimate existing titles (both current and last gen) would shrink using these techniques...
also it should be mentioned that XNA compresses and stores content on the game disk to drop the size of golden games by at least 15% from last gen
Post by: sidewinder33 on October 05, 2006, 10:49:00 AM
Post by: KAGE360 on October 05, 2006, 10:58:00 AM
QUOTE(sidewinder33 @ Oct 5 2006, 12:56 PM)
This is going to piss off a lot of ps3 early adopters when they start putting regular dvd drives in the second gen Ps3's bc they no longer need the extra space. I wonder if it increased read times, or what there has to be a catch somewhere it just can't be this good for us.
there is a reason i included this quote:
QUOTE
Confused by the fact that I hadnt heard about this technology before, I spoke to one of the men behind it directly - Dr Sébastien Deguy. He assured me that there were no catches with his system, that if a game contained 1GB of textures he would be able to reduce that to 300MB and lose no quality. When I asked why everyone wasnt using the program at the moment he explained it was due to people needing to be retrained in learning a new system. He was optimistic however, that soon all games companies will be using their new texture tools.
Post by: JustDanMI on October 05, 2006, 12:21:00 PM
QUOTE(sidewinder33 @ Oct 5 2006, 12:56 PM)
This is going to piss off a lot of ps3 early adopters when they start putting regular dvd drives in the second gen Ps3's bc they no longer need the extra space. I wonder if it increased read times, or what there has to be a catch somewhere it just can't be this good for us.
PS3 will NEVER replace the Blue ray drive with a DVD drive, NEVER. They're counting to heavily on the PS3 to push their blue ray media upon everyone. Whether the games need the space or not, they're still going to be pushing it for HD movies.
Post by: Havok on October 05, 2006, 12:48:00 PM
Post by: BCfosheezy on October 05, 2006, 01:27:00 PM
Certainly this technology will help. It will help piracy as well. I'm sure that will be a controversial argument if someone chooses to take it up. I would just like to point out that if you decreased the size of today's games 70% you make them a lot easier to download.
I am sure I'm not the only one that thought of this.Post by: sidewinder33 on October 05, 2006, 04:47:00 PM
QUOTE(KAGE360 @ Oct 5 2006, 11:05 AM)
there is a reason i included this quote:
It just says no lose in quality, it doesn't say anything about how long it would take to access and then decompress this tightly packed data. I am by no means saying that its stupid or that a few extra seconds of read time isnt worth the exchange I'm just saying you can't have something be perfect, something has to be sacrificed in order to make this work. With current technology yes the drawbacks are smaller, but there still have to be drawbacks. If there wasnt then everyone would jump on this and start using it as fast as they could, I mean a 2.5 gig game could be put on a regular cd.
QUOTE(JustDanMI @ Oct 5 2006, 12:28 PM)
PS3 will NEVER replace the Blue ray drive with a DVD drive, NEVER. They're counting to heavily on the PS3 to push their blue ray media upon everyone. Whether the games need the space or not, they're still going to be pushing it for HD movies.
What about when blu ray fails miserably and it is a huge loss to keep producing the ps3's with BR drives? This might be adapter to work for hd movies which would negate the need for 1000$ BR players.
Post by: KAGE360 on October 05, 2006, 05:06:00 PM
QUOTE(sidewinder33 @ Oct 5 2006, 06:54 PM)
It just says no lose in quality, it doesn't say anything about how long it would take to access and then decompress this tightly packed data. I am by no means saying that its stupid or that a few extra seconds of read time isnt worth the exchange I'm just saying you can't have something be perfect, something has to be sacrificed in order to make this work. With current technology yes the drawbacks are smaller, but there still have to be drawbacks. If there wasnt then everyone would jump on this and start using it as fast as they could, I mean a 2.5 gig game could be put on a regular cd.
i think that when he said there are no catches he meant in every respect. it is entirely new technology that just got introduced the other day and is already making shockwaves on the net. the only drawback is the developers have to learn the new technique, because its a new technique may mean that developers will run into snaggs but this doesnt have to mean that in the end there has to be any performance cost. of course im not a developer, but from how i read it, by having a chance to become the industry standard would mean that its an improvement in all respects.
look at how character models are rendered now. before it was models covered with textures, now its the standard to render a low poly mesh covered in a high rez. texture/normal mapping. new technique to render a character and a performance increase because of it. all it took was for the industry to adapt to the new technique
Post by: alsybub on October 05, 2006, 06:18:00 PM
http://www.theproduct.de/
It's an FPS squeezed into 96kb using some extreme compression techniques.
Here's a direct link to the file:
http://kk.kema.at/fi...rieger-beta.zip
Mind blowing stuff.
Post by: Altima NEO on October 05, 2006, 07:03:00 PM
QUOTE(alsybub @ Oct 5 2006, 05:25 PM)
Check this out:
http://www.theproduct.de/
It's an FPS squeezed into 96kb using some extreme compression techniques.
Here's a direct link to the file:
http://kk.kema.at/fi...rieger-beta.zip
Mind blowing stuff.
This has been around a while, but its very amazing. This doesnt rely on compression techniques to attain such a small file size. It relies on procedurally generated textures. True testament of what procedural textures can really do. They also have links to "demos" made by others with the same goal in mind, to make a cool demo with lots of stuff, but an extremely small file size.
Oh and according to the devs, if .kkreiger were to be done traditionally (standard bitmap textures, rather than procedurals) the 96kb demo would be more like 200-300 MB. Quite impressive what procedruals can do.
Post by: hamwbone on October 05, 2006, 10:22:00 PM
i posted a link to http://www.scene.org/ in the other thread, (which was started before this one) has lots of very similar stuff there, check out the 64k demos!
Post by: VerbalVenom on October 06, 2006, 06:08:00 PM
Post by: Altima NEO on October 07, 2006, 12:51:00 PM
QUOTE(VerbalVenom @ Oct 6 2006, 05:15 PM) 
Wikipedia.org on Procedural Synthesis. The Xbox 360 DOES support Procedural Synthesis. Hopefully they'll get these devs trained and using this technology.
Oblivion used a form of procedural synthesis for its foliage, neat!
Post by: Heet on October 07, 2006, 03:02:00 PM
Post by: Keshire on October 07, 2006, 04:05:00 PM
QUOTE(Altima NEO @ Oct 7 2006, 01:22 PM)
Oblivion used a form of procedural synthesis for its foliage, neat!
Made by somebody else. Speed Tree is much like Havok. Plug and Play.
Post by: Mr Invader on October 07, 2006, 06:47:00 PM
^Not sure where i heard it from but i guarantee i'm not making it up^
Makes you think on how small the games will be now. With this new compression, Blu-ray wont be needed even more than it is now.
Post by: m_hael on October 08, 2006, 12:23:00 AM
Allegorithmic's "new" techniques are not new; their "solution" is new. The product they are selling is a plugin that can generate textures from a set of variables; Procedural synthesis. What it does NOT do is compress an existing texture. This is what was meant when he said Developers need to learn how to use it.
The root of the problem lies in artistic flair, if your textures are generated by an algorithm then they are inherently mathematical : regular, patterned, repeating or fractal.
Whilst I don't doubt that some games can and will benefit largely from tech similar to this and probably from this solution too, I will say this ... artists don't like math and have an inate distrust of pixels they did not generate.
Elements this tech will be good at involve.
Asphalt
rocks
grass
tree's & foliage
noise
sky & clouds
textiles
fractals
normal maps for glass/steel/concrete
and many many more
what this tech is NOT good at is.
decals
photo-realistic anything
most games use a LOT of decals & photorealistic textures.
his estimate of 70% makes a HUGE assumption; that an entire game had EVERY texture designed using the tools they create. Sadly that tool cannot create a face, a hair style, an 'adio" shoe decal... so games which people in them simply cannot use it to the max.
It (procedural synthesis) will help - its already in use in many games - but it is not the saviour of all that is games nor is it going to ruin Blu-ray... it is simply another tool in our arsenal and in this case a product needing to sell and thus sensationalised by a sneaky headline.
Post by: yaazz on October 08, 2006, 07:37:00 AM