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[SolidSnakex]

Some better quality MGS4 pics from its trialer

Snakes Face

Snakes Suit

 

[FightyF]

And the 360 is...$100 cheaper, eh?

 

[Amir0x]

And the 360 is...$100 cheaper, eh?

Holy shit, Sony announced the PS3 price? Link to the thread, I need to put it in my TGS summary thing.

 

[Particle Physicist]

And the 360 is...$100 cheaper, eh?

oh yea? so the ps3's price has been announced?

 

[Particle Physicist]

No.

X05 is PD0 unveiling.

And it'll be glorious.

last i checked, PD0 was unveiled already.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

Some better quality MGS4 pics from its trialer

Snakes Face

Snakes Suit

Anybody got close up shots of the Gear of Wars guy? The amount of detail missed on Snake from a medium shot is stagering, the close-up view is incredible, all the little details you couldnl't really make out that much before.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Anybody got close up shots of the Gear of Wars guy? The amount of detail missed on Snake from a medium shot is stagering, the close-up view is incredible, all the little details you couldnl't really make out that much before.

It's also hard to really capture how detailed Snakes face is in screens since depending on how he moves it you'll see folds form or deepen. It's like watching the demo of Molina from E3, in screens sure it looks great but when put in motion its alot more than that.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

It's also hard to really capture how detailed Snakes face is in screens since depending on how he moves it you'll see folds form or deepen. It's like watching the demo of Molina from E3, in screens sure it looks great but when put in motion its alot more than that.

Snake's hair detail = O_O

None of the clump stuff, but a whole rack of strains can be made out and they look extremely thin too, most hair detail don't go that far!!

 

[Particle Physicist]

Anybody got close up shots of the Gear of Wars guy? The amount of detail missed on Snake from a medium shot is stagering, the close-up view is incredible, all the little details you couldnl't really make out that much before.

i think the main reason is that we dont have direct feed shots yet..

 

[SolidSnakex]

Snake's hair detail = O_O

None of the clump stuff, but a whole rack of strains can be made out and they look extremely thin too, most hair detail don't go that far!!

If you download the video that EviLore posted in the GAF Exclusive MGS4 thread you can see it move around at some points. Watch when he finishes injecting himself, he'll throw his head down and his hair moves all around (while he's injecting it you can see it move around too as he's shaking).

 

[Mrbob]

last i checked, PD0 was unveiled already.

Yeah, small bits and pieces. X05 will be the PD0 blowout.

 

[Speevy]

Poor scultpted brute soldier guy. He's been through a lot in so few days.

 

[dark10x]

Poor scultpted brute soldier guy. He's been through a lot in so few days.

That explains it! It's not that he is badly animated, it's that he's all worn out and can't move properly...

 

[fortified_concept]

And the 360 is...$100 cheaper, eh?

If you think that the aren't big differences between the two models' heads you might have to look more carefully. On the top of my head: Detailed teeth on snake's model, tongue (and it's pretty freaky when he shows it), detailed hair which the GoW model doesn't have, incredibly detailed wringles under his eyes, wringles under his chin and between his neck and head when he lowers it, the moustache, and last but not least the bandana which moves in proportion with the characters movement unlike the GoW model where it doesn't move at all. All these require power. Much more power.

And btw if you comparing the 300$ 360 model with the supposed 400$ PS3, I think there are a few differences between them. If not for the difference of hardware, built-in wifi and Blue-Ray overcompensate the price difference.

 

[Monk]

Have we got the comparison with the best possible x game shot with the worst possible y game shot yet?

 

[SolidSnakex]

Have we got the comparison with the best possible x game shot with the worst possible y game shot yet?

It's needed so other threads can avoid turning into a comparison battle.

 

[hukasmokincaterpillar]

Snake's hair detail = O_O

None of the clump stuff, but a whole rack of strains can be made out and they look extremely thin too, most hair detail don't go that far!!

There's a chap on B3D who translates a lot of Japanse stuff who made out some of the chatter during that tech demo presentation. Apparently Kojima's lead programmer states that the polygonal detail in Snake's mustache alone is about equal to an entire character model in MGS3 (3000 polys)! :lol They also said his entire head of hair is made up of 60,000 vertices. This all sounds a little extreme even for Kojima, but then again these guys have always been psychotic when it comes to detail. Its like they got a new toy and now they cant help themselves. They even rendered pixels on the Mini-Gear's LCD for crying out loud.

 

[Particle Physicist]

Yeah, small bits and pieces. X05 will be the PD0 blowout.

werent people allowed to play it at the mtv event?

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

There's a chap on B3D who translates a lot of Japanse stuff who made out some of the chatter during that tech demo presentation. Apparently Kojima's lead programmer states that the polygonal detail in Snake's mustache alone is about equal to an entire character model in MGS3 (3000 polys)! :lol They also said his entire head of hair is made up of 60,000 vertices. This all sounds a little extreme even for Kojima, but then again these guys have always been psychotic when it comes to detail. Its like they got a new toy and now they cant help themselves. They even rendered pixels on the Mini-Gear's LCD for crying out loud.

Holy Crap dude, that's sick, no, not just sick, insane!! We knew the characters are higher poly but with what seems like most games are doing is using heavy use of normal mapping on a relatively higher than this gen polygon model to make up the difference, but this is taking it to the opposite and extreme!

 

[Speevy]

3,000 polys? They should make it into a boss, or a weapon at least.

 

[Mrbob]

werent people allowed to play it at the mtv event?

You're right. Ms might as well not release any new media since we know so much about the game.

 

[Shabaz]

Snake has some major camel toe going on.

 

[Gek54]

Snake has some major camel toe going on.

Snake: "Camel toe? What? where??

 

[hukasmokincaterpillar]

Holy Crap dude, that's sick, no, not just sick, insane!! We knew the characters are higher poly but with what seems like most games are doing is using heavy use of normal mapping on a relatively higher than this gen polygon model to make up the difference, but this is taking it to the opposite and extreme!

One of the posters noted that it does seem a little backward considering you can still see lower poly edges up close on Snake's model like his shoulders. If I had to make a guess they've probably chosen to use subtle normal mapping on the less discernable areas and saved the higher poly sophistication where it'll really be noticed like the face and hair. Just a hunch. 60,000 for just hair still sounds nuts though.

Unless Kojima meant something else by the "things we dont see" motif and there's some missing hair in that equation. Perhaps Snake is really Italian?

 

[Raven.]

Holy Crap dude, that's sick, no, not just sick, insane!! We knew the characters are higher poly but with what seems like most games are doing is using heavy use of normal mapping on a relatively higher than this gen polygon model to make up the difference, but this is taking it to the opposite and extreme!

Indeed it's the essential difference between it and the UE3 engine characters done with the low-poly normal map technique.

This is how the UE3 characters have looked in many scenes of the realtime epic UE3 engine game trailers, I've seen:

and this is the reason, some of the characters appear to be competing with snake's mustache in terms of geometry(assuming the info's translated correctly.) :lol

 

[fortified_concept]

One of the posters noted that it does seem a little backward considering you can still see lower poly edges up close on Snake's model like his shoulders. If I had to make a guess they've probably chosen to use subtle normal mapping on the less discernable areas and saved the higher poly sophistication where it'll really be noticed like the face and hair. Just a hunch. 60,000 for just hair still sounds nuts though.

Unless Kojima meant something else by the "things we dont see" motif and there's some missing hair in that equation. Perhaps Snake is really Italian?

I can't see no edges. Look at the photo in the post above yours where the shoulders are shown. Where are the edges?

 

[Speevy]

I wonder how the indoor backgrounds and buildings will shape up once this game releases. Should be pretty interesting to see it come along.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Indeed it's the essential difference between it and the UE3 engine characters done with the low-poly normal map technique.

This is how the UE3 characters have looked in many scenes of the realtime epic UE3 engine game trailers, I've seen:

and this is the reason, some of the characters appear to be competing with snake's mustache in terms of geometry(assuming the info's translated correctly.) :lol

It's why I don't find the UE3 engine as impressive as some. The textures are nice but the characters almost always come out looking strange. But it seems like alot of games are going to be using it instead of developers creating their own engines. The ones that do have alot of talent and create their own engines will come out all the better for it.

 

[Kangu]

There's a chap on B3D who translates a lot of Japanse stuff who made out some of the chatter during that tech demo presentation. Apparently Kojima's lead programmer states that the polygonal detail in Snake's mustache alone is about equal to an entire character model in MGS3 (3000 polys)! :lol They also said his entire head of hair is made up of 60,000 vertices. This all sounds a little extreme even for Kojima, but then again these guys have always been psychotic when it comes to detail. Its like they got a new toy and now they cant help themselves. They even rendered pixels on the Mini-Gear's LCD for crying out loud.

That more or less confirms that the Snake model in the trailer is not going to be the gameplay model. Snake would come in at at least 150,000 polys considering that stuff, and assuming they were conservative with everything else. Besides Kojima says he wants to concentrate on making the world realistic, such a wasteful Snake model would eat up too many resources.

 

[Speevy]

1 billion polygon fingernails.

 

[SolidSnakex]

That more or less confirms that the Snake model in the trailer is not going to be the gameplay model. Snake would come in at at least 150,000 polys considering that stuff, and assuming they were conservative with everything else. Besides Kojima says he wants to concentrate on making the world realistic, such a wasteful Snake model would eat up too many resources.

If the world is realistic and Snakes model isn't, that'd throw off his whole point of making things look natural. Just going through the series, Snakes ingame and cutscene models are the same. Here's MGS3

Cutscene

Ingame

That's why they're able to do trailers without people being able to tell the difference between the gameplay and cutscenes, because the character models don't change from cutscene to gameplay.

 

[Kangu]

If the world is realistic and Snakes model isn't, that'd throw off his whole point of making things look natural. Just going through the series, Snakes ingame and cutscene models are the same. Here's MGS3

That's why they're able to do trailers without people being able to tell the difference between the gameplay and cutscenes, because the character models don't change from cutscene to gameplay.

I'm pretty sure Kojima or one of his programmers has stated that they have at least 3 models (at least that was the case with MGS2). You can make the Snake model extremely realistic and still not use so many resources. There is absolutely no way you will notice that Snake's moustache is (properly) normal mapped or made with 300 polys as opposed to 3000 in a normal in game situation.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

That more or less confirms that the Snake model in the trailer is not going to be the gameplay model. Snake would come in at at least 150,000 polys considering that stuff, and assuming they were conservative with everything else. Besides Kojima says he wants to concentrate on making the world realistic, such a wasteful Snake model would eat up too many resources.

If they could pull it off while still having plenty of overhead for other things to reach their goals would it be wasteful? If that's the case, and seeing how it's Team Kojima, a dev known for it's overall balance and polish in it's game engines, it's not really wasteful.

 

[Pimpwerx]

That more or less confirms that the Snake model in the trailer is not going to be the gameplay model. Snake would come in at at least 150,000 polys considering that stuff, and assuming they were conservative with everything else. Besides Kojima says he wants to concentrate on making the world realistic, such a wasteful Snake model would eat up too many resources.

RSX, if it's just a clock-pumped G70, can setup 1.1billion verts/sec. The G70 can setup 860Mpps. I think 150k polygon meshes should be pretty easy. 60x150=9Mpps. You're not breaking a sweat when you can setup 1100Mpps. The limitations seem to be in the RAM. I'd also assume that they can use HOS models and have Cell use a couple of SPEs to do dynamic tesselation on them so you never see any LOD shifts.

I don't see why they'd need to make seperate models for in-game and cutscenes, when creating the high-end model alone will take a lot of time. If it's a full-3D camera, then you'd gonna right up on Snake's ass most of the game anyway. With normal backface culling, you save your GPU a lot of work, and it really comes down to what you can store in memory. IMO, I don't expect cutscene models to differ from in-game models in either 360 or PS3 games. That's my opinion though. It seems like a waste when both systems can spit out a fuckton of verts already and seem more memory/bandwidth limited than raw processing power-limited. PEACE.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

RSX, if it's just a clock-pumped G70, can setup 1.1billion verts/sec. The G70 can setup 860Mpps. I think 150k polygon meshes should be pretty easy. 60x150=9Mpps. You're not breaking a sweat when you can setup 1100Mpps. The limitations seem to be in the RAM. I'd also assume that they can use HOS models and have Cell use a couple of SPEs to do dynamic tesselation on them so you never see any LOD shifts.

I don't see why they'd need to make seperate models for in-game and cutscenes, when creating the high-end model alone will take a lot of time. If it's a full-3D camera, then you'd gonna right up on Snake's ass most of the game anyway. With normal backface culling, you save your GPU a lot of work, and it really comes down to what you can store in memory. IMO, I don't expect cutscene models to differ from in-game models in either 360 or PS3 games. That's my opinion though. It seems like a waste when both systems can spit out a fuckton of verts already and seem more memory/bandwidth limited than raw processing power-limited. PEACE.

Heh, if some reason they find RSX doesn't have enough polys, they can always try to use Cell's own polygon horsepower to add to it.

 

[hukasmokincaterpillar]

That more or less confirms that the Snake model in the trailer is not going to be the gameplay model. Snake would come in at at least 150,000 polys considering that stuff, and assuming they were conservative with everything else. Besides Kojima says he wants to concentrate on making the world realistic, such a wasteful Snake model would eat up too many resources.

I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself calling it wasteful or confirmation of anything. We dont know the exact resources they'll have for any of this stuff.

 

[Particle Physicist]

You're right. Ms might as well not release any new media since we know so much about the game.

just saying.. you cant have an unveiling.. if it already happened.

 

[jett]

I'm pretty sure Kojima or one of his programmers has stated that they have at least 3 models (at least that was the case with MGS2). You can make the Snake model extremely realistic and still not use so many resources. There is absolutely no way you will notice that Snake's moustache is (properly) normal mapped or made with 300 polys as opposed to 3000 in a normal in game situation.

Nope, you can clearly tell in the Document of MGS2 that there's really just one model for all characters. The faces and bodies(# polys they're made up and texturing) are the same. There is a minimal difference between cut-scene snake and gameplay Snake/Raiden though: individually rendered fingers. Probably done so animating in-game stuff isn't as time consuming? I have no idea. The same isn't true for MGS3, though.

All MGS3 models are exactly the same in-game and in cut-scene, painfully obvious when you go to the menu screen or when you're dragging EVA around.

 

[jett]

Well, triple post. Jeez wtf.

 

[jett]

Sorry.

 

[Vagrant]

Nope, you can clearly tell in the Document of MGS2 that there's really just one model for all characters. The faces and bodies(# polys they're made up and texturing) are the same. There is a minimal difference between cut-scene snake and gameplay Snake/Raiden though: individually rendered fingers.

Sorry but thats not quite right, Snake has atleast two in-game models for MGS2 or atleast early versions did. It switches between them depending on the how close the camera is to the screen (one being identical to the cutscene model or very close to it). If you have the MGS2 demo that came with ZOE you can see this, due the LOD being set to switch to the good model only when Snakes hugging a wall. Have Snake stand close enough to the camera in a hallway or something to see his face and you'll see it is missing geometry and is mostly texture.

You can also see this model if you watch the first internal MGS2 trailer on the Document of MGS2, look for the scene where he's sneaking around in the area with all the pipes on the walls and you'll see it. In the final game you never really see this model due to the LOD switching much farther away then it did in the demo. I don't know if Raiden has another model but he probably does. So basically in the final game it never hurt the visuals despite having two models. Oh and the guns always had less polys then the cutscenes in third person as well.

 

[jett]

Sorry but thats not quite right, Snake has atleast two in-game models for MGS2 or atleast early versions did. It switches between them depending on the how close the camera is to the screen (one being identical to the cutscene model or very close to it). If you have the MGS2 demo that came with ZOE you can see this, due the LOD being set to switch to the good model only when Snakes hugging a wall. Have Snake stand close enough to the camera in a hallway or something to see his face and you'll see it is missing geometry and is mostly texture.

You can also see this model if you watch the first internal MGS2 trailer on the Document of MGS2, look for the scene where he's sneaking around in the area with all the pipes on the walls and you'll see it. In the final game you never really see this model due to the LOD switching much farther away then it did in the demo. I don't know if Raiden has another model but he probably does. So basically in the final game it never hurt the visuals despite having two models. Oh and the guns always had less polys then the cutscenes in third person as well.

You're taking about a demo, and an insanely early build(said internal trailer has a Snake model that's remarkably different from the one in the final game). I'm talking about the final game, which is really all that matters.

 

[Vagrant]

You're taking about a demo, and an insanely early build(said internal trailer has a Snake model that's remarkably different from the one in the final game). I'm talking about the final game, which is really all that matters.

For all pratical puposes players will only see the high-detail model in MGS2 even if I'm right, so I don't think it takes anything away from the game. I'm just nitpicking about whether Snake had more then one in-game model and pointing out that the Document didn't show them all (which is odd considering they show cell-shaded snake and the early Raiden models).

 

[ForzaItalia]

If you look closely you can see the dandruff flakes and nits in Snake's mullet.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Here's Snakes MGS2 cutscene and ingame model

 

[Gattsu25]

The difference is astounding

 

[Slurpy]

Why do we care? The in-game snake model will look astounding anyway. I don't see why anyone would doubt that.

 

[Ben Sones]

I can't see no edges. Look at the photo in the post above yours where the shoulders are shown. Where are the edges?

Don't get me wrong--MGS4 looks awesome. But all you folks who think that Snake is made from 6.4 bazillion polys with no normal mapping or anything are on crack. There are a lot of clever tricks that make that Snake model seem like it has a lot more geometry than it does, including (I'd guess) a lot of normal mapping. If you look closely, you can definitely see the edges in the actual model. Large ones. I've highlighted a few, here:

Before you fire up the flamethrowers, I'm not trying to trash the game or anything. It's visually very impressive, but good 3D design is not just about throwing polys at models.

The hair is pretty sick, though. Anyone know how the PS3's hair rendering system works?

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

Don't get me wrong--MGS4 looks awesome. But all you folks who think that Snake is made from 6.4 bazillion polys with no normal mapping or anything are on crack. There are a lot of clever tricks that make that Snake model seem like it has a lot more geometry than it does, including (I'd guess) a lot of normal mapping. If you look closely, you can definitely see the edges in the actual model. Large ones. I've highlighted a few, here:

Before you fire up the flamethrowers, I'm not trying to trash the game or anything. It's visually very impressive, but good 3D design is not just about throwing polys at models.

The hair is pretty sick, though. Anyone know how the PS3's hair rendering system works?

Oh, I don't think it's that MGS4 doesn't use normal mapping of any kind, because that would be a wasted effect that could be put to good use. It's just that it seems that Snake himself is made up of huge amounts of polys on top of the normal mapping yet is much more subtle looking, other engines seem to go with a relatively lower poly model and use tons of normal mapping to make up the difference (as well as not easying up on the specularity).

With MGS4 I like how balanced it looks, the suit is very form fitting and rounder which is in high contrast to guys with big bulky armor that can get away with harder edges because of the design.

 

[J2 Cool]

Eh, that's a bad pic to choose. It's not actually edges but his neck and the way the suit fits around it. Entirely intentional even. I thought earlier the same thing before realizing it wasn't a jagged edge. Try finding another and you'll have trouble. It's there but not apparent at all hardly. Also, if you look at that MGS2 pic for more than a minute or two, like I did and scroll down it's just insane the upgrade. Realising everything has textures where as MGS2 has a lot of plain grays and a lot less real looking hair. You scroll down and notice the texture of the bandana and it just blows your mind.