The future of 3D graphics (wow !)
My employer has been involving me more and more with 3D technology development for the company. Very nice indeed !!
From time to time, I get involved with very interesting technology previews. What I see is not what I can report of. Also early preview of things don't normally tell the whole story. However, it seems that programmability is coming back in a big way.
This is somewhat obvious, considering how programmable shaders are getting constantly more powerful and pervasive. Also, with the PS3 almost going Cell-only, with nVidia releasing CUDA and with the academical world wishing for more GPGPU.
With great programmability comes great uncertainty: what's next ?
Some point obviously towards Ray Tracing. I'm personally skeptic about Ray Tracing as the ultimate solution. Ray traced images are great for hard shadows, specular and refractive materials, but most natural images are better off with Radiosity-like approaches. Being able to quickly trace rays across a scene is very valuable, but classical Ray Tracing just looks too dull for final rendering.
Having a strong interest in Digital Image Processing, I agree with those that point towards Digital Geometry Processing (or DGP). Basically introducing more signal theory in 3D graphics. It's nothing new, but so far it hasn't been very relevant in the video game industry. Subdivision Surfaces, Wavelets, cool stuff.
As far as rendering goes, I think that we are stuck with a narrow vision of things. The digital concept, to work with discrete signals, is obviously not very feasible in 3D space (voxelize everything ? Forget it !). For that reason my interest is towards more analytical approaches. Advanced 3D graphics lighting is not a 3D operation and so it should probably be solved in an higher dimensional space !
Who is going to do all this I'm not sure.. time to get back to my GTP work (Google + TiddlyWiki + PowerPoint ..8( )
P.S. I'm supposedly on vacation, using the weekend days accumulated for the travel during the GDC.
The games are garbage
Unfortunately the processing power of machines is being directed in totally wrong direction. We are getting more pretty, more smooth, more realistic game graphics but the games are becoming garbage. Either First Person Whatever Junk or other junk. The playability goes nowhere while the games could be realistic at the game play. For example Grand Theft Auto. I love this game, they created a very nice world that I can run around and throw bottles with gasoline on people walking on side walks. It's cool. I can do mayhem there. Now they can make this game more beautiful, more smooth, but it will be the same boring game.
Question is, what will happen if they add online play? For sure there are people like me who enjoy doing MAYHEM! It's just cool. But then, such people will turn this game into another Quake. If it is single player game, then I will be throwing grenades left and right and finally police gets me down. If it is multi player online game then it will turn into Quake Arena or whatever. Another garbage game. Tho there are chances, that they could create even better world. For example people like me, interested in shooting left and right should be arrested and for example sent to Alcatraz where such other guys would live. There could be ways to get out of there if a player gets some social thinking back and starts playing game by rules. But I am guessing that game authors will go easy way and simply will be banning such people from playing game. And all the computing power will go into making more pretty graphics.
Wii is there for your
Wii is there for your playability 8)
..but I guess you won't be able to use the wiimote to throw incendiary bottles !
Cee
While reading your post I was thinking that the next logical step would be C-programmable GPUs, then I've followed the links! ;)
Also, what Duddie said.
And what are those new buttons under articles?!?!
If I want to bookmark something then I know how to do it from my Google Toolbar!!! Add MSNWinks or other garbage... we all die to see it!
The buttons are a test 8) I
The buttons are a test 8)
I actually even tried to digg one of my own stories today, mostly to see how it works. Otherwise, I never really tried to promote the site. It doesn't make sense, because either, one has very interesting content or becomes a news whore. At the same time, it's addictive to see that 1 or 2 dollars stacking up every day (yesterday it was $0.46 !)
Regarding the bookmarks, Google Bookmarks from Google Toolbar don't work from me anymore.. not sure how. So, I recently moved back to del.icio.us. From Firefox Bookmarks menu there is a nice Get Bookmark Add-ons. From there I got the latest one for deli.cio.us and that brought me back to use my account again.
It's very useful, it hooks directly to the CTRL-D shortcut and with CTRL-B it opens a sidebar where I can search for tags.
Deli-Crap!
Anyway, I will keep on posting because I have been promised a share in $$$ if I keep posting content and comments :) It is nice to get like 1% of 0.46 or so :P
To paraphrase Sigourney
To paraphrase Sigourney Weaver in Alien: "you'll get whatever is coming to you" 8)
tryinghelp.wav
No need to say more! :)
Alien vs Predator has been
Alien vs Predator has been shown more often on TV here, so I checked and what do you know.... Alien vs Predator 2 is coming christmas 2007! Also I read that Aliens 5 is being worked on with S. Weaver still as the main protagonist...
Alien vs Grandmother?
I also finally saw Rocky Balboa... Kind of sad seeing Stallone with all those varicose veins.
In the meantime can you tell
In the meantime can you tell me wtf is this?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=add0HI5fmXI
Sad that it has to be
Sad that it has to be Italians doing it !
I once met an Italian guy that claimed he did this stuff but actually using old Persian costumes along with others I guess.
As a kid I remember being excited about this stuff.. at some point, but then Goldrake took over my interest and I never looked back into medieval stuff 8)
And yeah, I agree about Rocky's varicose veins !!!
Italians vs Japanese
Seems like those two nations have a lot in common. Japanese love their Manga-Cosplay or whatever it is called and Italians have their Medieval-Cosplay... What can I say. Better leave it without comment because my imagination starts to work on what Davide San could be doing on Saturday Nights :P
Medieval cosplay is popoular
Medieval cosplay is popoular in America, not in Italy !
Not just medieval, for
Not just medieval, for example starwars is another popular topic for live roleplaying. But like kaz I also thought it was mostly practiced in america.
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