any body remember ff7 being converted....
- Thread starter Shitface
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I'm pretty sure Shining Force III uses non-coplanar vertices, but AFAIK it's the only game I ever seen doing that.
All other games pretend the VDP1 is retarted and would screw up if the vertices aren't co-planar, but, after reading the docs, it seems it can render those without problems, even if the resulting screen quad ends up being convex. The docs even explain a bit how it handles the rendering of convex quads.
Anyway... what is that way of overlapping tranparencies? Me curious! ^_^
Grandia used the VDP1-to-VDP2 transparency, that many games uses because it seems to be the only transparency mode that allows different levels of transparency and additive effects, but it has the nasty overlapping bug, so the "transparent" sprites will only show the VD2 layer behind it, ignoring any other sprites behind it.
In Grandia, the spell effects somehow show the characters/enemies sprites behind them, and I am not sure on how it does that. I have two theories: either the character sprites are actually rendered by the VDP2, and thus can be seen behind the transparencies, or the spell effects are rendered into another buffer and draw as windows, that can have the same transparency effects but shows up on top of all sprites.
Burning Rangers uses that trick for the excessive amount of transparencies in that game, layering the buffer with an additive transparency. But it also needs to renders the walls and the characters, all in pure black, so they won't show up in the additive layer and can mask the transluscent objects (otherwise all transluscent objects would be rendered on top of everything), and that would be a nice performance hit, so they render this buffer with a halved resolution, making all transluscent objects be more pixelated than usual.
Too bad no Saturn emulator can run Grandia, otherwise it would be easy to figure out the trick by turning layers on and off.
And the models could be used, I think, if a convertion util were made.
All other games pretend the VDP1 is retarted and would screw up if the vertices aren't co-planar, but, after reading the docs, it seems it can render those without problems, even if the resulting screen quad ends up being convex. The docs even explain a bit how it handles the rendering of convex quads.
Anyway... what is that way of overlapping tranparencies? Me curious! ^_^
Grandia used the VDP1-to-VDP2 transparency, that many games uses because it seems to be the only transparency mode that allows different levels of transparency and additive effects, but it has the nasty overlapping bug, so the "transparent" sprites will only show the VD2 layer behind it, ignoring any other sprites behind it.
In Grandia, the spell effects somehow show the characters/enemies sprites behind them, and I am not sure on how it does that. I have two theories: either the character sprites are actually rendered by the VDP2, and thus can be seen behind the transparencies, or the spell effects are rendered into another buffer and draw as windows, that can have the same transparency effects but shows up on top of all sprites.
Burning Rangers uses that trick for the excessive amount of transparencies in that game, layering the buffer with an additive transparency. But it also needs to renders the walls and the characters, all in pure black, so they won't show up in the additive layer and can mask the transluscent objects (otherwise all transluscent objects would be rendered on top of everything), and that would be a nice performance hit, so they render this buffer with a halved resolution, making all transluscent objects be more pixelated than usual.
Too bad no Saturn emulator can run Grandia, otherwise it would be easy to figure out the trick by turning layers on and off.
And the models could be used, I think, if a convertion util were made.
Game Arts has to be the most badass programming studio ever.
I mean, cripes, Grandia II kills the PS2 while running flawless on Dreamcast. Even a sloppy conversion can't pull off the change I'm talking about.
VDP2 doesn't do the "3D". It does backgrounds, up to five layers (which you CAN treat as objects, but it's painful), or two layers with scaling/rotation (like SNES's Mode 7 on crack).
VDP1 does all the "3D" work. 1 is the actual sprite engine, and it does all the projection into 3D space.
In theory, VDP1 should be totally capable of non-coplanar vertices, considering that that's a given feature when dealing with quadratics.
The huge issue, as you say, is the absence of a Z-buffer. Technically the hardware doesn't even support true 3D operation (hell, in theory the Atari 2600 should be able to project quads if you programmed it right)... just like PSX, the Saturn handles 3D via careful depth sorting. As long as you sort all the quads correctly, non-coplanar verts shouldn't be any slower than coplanar.
By the way - PSX's raster setup engine, AFAIR, can't accept quads. Any PSX games that used quads, did so using Saturn's method - the 2D engine. (correct me if I'm wrong about PSX's setup engine)
Added: Oh, by the way: You can't use any source material from FFVII. It's called "Art assets" and you will lose any lawsuits if they bring the issue up.
I mean, cripes, Grandia II kills the PS2 while running flawless on Dreamcast. Even a sloppy conversion can't pull off the change I'm talking about.
VDP2 doesn't do the "3D". It does backgrounds, up to five layers (which you CAN treat as objects, but it's painful), or two layers with scaling/rotation (like SNES's Mode 7 on crack).
VDP1 does all the "3D" work. 1 is the actual sprite engine, and it does all the projection into 3D space.
In theory, VDP1 should be totally capable of non-coplanar vertices, considering that that's a given feature when dealing with quadratics.
The huge issue, as you say, is the absence of a Z-buffer. Technically the hardware doesn't even support true 3D operation (hell, in theory the Atari 2600 should be able to project quads if you programmed it right)... just like PSX, the Saturn handles 3D via careful depth sorting. As long as you sort all the quads correctly, non-coplanar verts shouldn't be any slower than coplanar.
By the way - PSX's raster setup engine, AFAIR, can't accept quads. Any PSX games that used quads, did so using Saturn's method - the 2D engine. (correct me if I'm wrong about PSX's setup engine)
Added: Oh, by the way: You can't use any source material from FFVII. It's called "Art assets" and you will lose any lawsuits if they bring the issue up.
D'oh! Typo.
No it doesn't. Look at the drawing commands in the VDP1 manual; exactly zero of them can accept Z coordinates. 3D -> 2D transformation is done by the SH-2s and/or the SCU DSP (IIRC there's actually a way to DMA a display list "through" the SCU DSP into VRAM, similar to how PS2's vector processing is set up), and VDP1 draws the transformed scene.
I'm not sure what you mean by "raster setup engine", but the GPU does have commands to draw quads. I'm not sure whether the GTE provides anything useful for dealing with them though.
I think that was assumed from the get-go. I had criticized him earlier for choosing FF7 instead of doing a lower-profile game as a proof-of-concept.
My memory of this is vague. I think it's only possible in certain color modes and only if everything is drawn in the correct order. I could definitely be wrong on this, as the manuals don't make it crystal-clear. You'd probably be better off rendering it in software.
Don't have the manuals =) Know most of this stuff anyway... though I know more about PS2/Xbox/GCN than I do about last gen (which isn't to say I don't know a good deal about the 32-bit generation as well
Thanks for adding to my GK. =)
And... as I said, I know they can't accept Z coords (I said "The absence of a Z-buffer"). It's manually depth-sorted, but still projected using VDP1 - using the manually sorted coordinates from the processors.
Raster setup -> accepts transformed vertices and "sets them up" for rasteerisation.
Modern PC chips have those same commands, but they have to tesselate the quads into triangles before any rasterisation can be done. PC hardware hasn't accepted quads in a long time (the longest holdout was nVidia - their chips before Riva128 used quads).
Yeah, I agree... but I'm not sure it was that assumed:
Sorry, was thinking this was Developers Central with the way the discussion was turning. You may be interested in checking out antime's site...
In that case, I think I misinterpreted your use of "projected"... in any case, this would seem to mean that we're in agreement, which can only be a good thing.
I think DBOY was speaking in a "it could be done" mode, which is sort of the whole assumption under which the project had to have operated; anything that could meaningfully be called "FF7 on Saturn" would have at the very least infringed by virtue of being a "derivative work".
So thats how its done...
I have to say that when reading all this, I realize that those programmers are extremely clever. Thats one of the fun things with programming the Saturn : its a challenge, since if you want to do some real advanced stuff, you really have to explore the system and its arcitecture.
But how is the reanscluencies in Shining Force 3 made? I guess of a combinatin of many different ways. Since they look fantastic but not low-res like in BR. (Check the Wendigo spell). And they get better and better for each scenario. Pretty amazing.
ok how about this..
the psx utterly canes the saturn in the 3d department. its time to stop denying it. im not talking specs or what not, im talking evidence.
almost every 3d saturn game i own looks shit.
the only good looking 3d saturn games ive seen are:
Panzer Dragoon 2 (& i assume Saga lives up to the graphics of Zwei)
Virtua Fighter 2
Sega Rally
and thats pretty much it, sonic R looks nice in some areas but is a shit game.
a saturn port of ff7 would be shit as, especially since the game is always changing from pre-render to fmv sequences.
the saturn blows the psx out of the water in the 2d department as we know so its 50/50 between the 2 systems isn't it. do u want 2d or 3d? think of how many saturn projects were canned becuase of the psx
tomb raider 2?
how bout resident evil 2? was that even started?
all saturn has under its 3d belt is quake which the psx couldnt do, yet it could do quake 2?
its 2003, both are shit graphically so lets forget it. its about classic gaming now. :smash
the psx utterly canes the saturn in the 3d department. its time to stop denying it. im not talking specs or what not, im talking evidence.
almost every 3d saturn game i own looks shit.
the only good looking 3d saturn games ive seen are:
Panzer Dragoon 2 (& i assume Saga lives up to the graphics of Zwei)
Virtua Fighter 2
Sega Rally
and thats pretty much it, sonic R looks nice in some areas but is a shit game.
a saturn port of ff7 would be shit as, especially since the game is always changing from pre-render to fmv sequences.
the saturn blows the psx out of the water in the 2d department as we know so its 50/50 between the 2 systems isn't it. do u want 2d or 3d? think of how many saturn projects were canned becuase of the psx
tomb raider 2?
how bout resident evil 2? was that even started?
all saturn has under its 3d belt is quake which the psx couldnt do, yet it could do quake 2?
its 2003, both are shit graphically so lets forget it. its about classic gaming now. :smash
Woo... should be fun to sift through. Thanks =)
In that case, I think I misinterpreted your use of "projected"... in any case, this would seem to mean that we're in agreement, which can only be a good thing.
Hehehe
I'd hardly agree on this one.
Evidence is more a display of a functional art department - how do you think Dreamcast's graphics can even think to stand up to Xbox, GameCube, and PS2's?
Saturn and PSX are more or less even in 3D. Saturn is more of a pain in the ass to programme to put out such incredible 3D graphics, but in theory if you could use non-coplanar vertices properly, Saturn's graphics could very well challenge the modern consoles. It's all in how you programme it.
PSX can't do non-coplanar quads - in order to rasterise, like any modern 3D hardware, it has to tesselate quads into triangles, and the poor PSX isn't sophisticated enough to do multi-stage tesselation. One quad = two triangles... which means non-coplanar verts will make for a nice EPCOT Ball style effect.
OTOH, PSX is much simpler to code, and uses triangles which are easier on the art department. Plus you don't have to fuck with the engine to get transparencies; the rasteriser does accurate dithering for free, provided your sorting is remotely accurate. Which leads to another thing - PSX, like Saturn, doesn't use any form of Z-buffer; it's all manually sorted. PSX has an advantage in that it has a separate geometry processor (GTE), but Saturn has more processing power overall... so that's a toss-up.
Most of the Saturn games that look really terrible, attempted to use degenerate, three-vertex quads as triangles - BAD BAD BAD idea, for quality AND performance.
Edits: Fixed a huge quote screwup and clarified one statement
Huh? Shining Force 3's spells uses one of the default transparency modes. No special magic is required to do that. Have you ever noticed you can't see the characters behind the spell effects? In Scenario 1 it's not that much noticeable, because Camelot did a very clevel job with colors and cameras to avoid/hide overlapping, so you have to look for it to notice. In Scenarios 2 and 3, where some spell effects are FAR more abusive, you can see the limitation.
It's the same transparency you see in Guardian Heroes, as example. It works more or less like this (I might have made some mistakes further on):
1) VDP2 renders the background (this includes MODE7 planes, and the Shining Force 3 battle backgrounds are basically a mode7 plane with a few 3D objects - and those 3D objects are always removed before the spell begins)
2) VDP1 renders the sprites (this includes polygons). Pixels that are to be transparent receive an special flag.
3) When the VDP1 buffer is composed with the VDP2 buffer, all pixels in VDP1 buffer with the special flag uses a special color calculation when rendered on top of the VDP2 buffer's pixels. In most games I've seen, it uses a basic color add operation (the pixel color values are added to the underlying pixel's color values - so darker colors have little effects over the base pixels, while white colors make everything even brighter). There is a substract mode, that darkens the colors, but few games uses it (Resident Evil uses that for character shadows).
So, the transparency is only applied after VDP1 has done all of it's business, and the transparency is only against the background layers, at least on these modes. So all sprites in VDP1 are actually rendered opaque, and the whole frame is composed against VDP2's frame, thus a transparent polygon won't show another polygon behind it.
Some games took advantage of that, actually. NiGHTs makes a damn good effect out of that "limitation" when you fight Wizeman. When you hit him, he'll appear "hollowed", as if his body were a portal to another dimension, and you can see a nebula of sorts through him. It was a really unique effect at the time, it's ahrd to describe. Silhouette Mirage also uses the limitation to perform the building reflections in the city level, that look very, very good.
Also, in theory, one could port FF7 as they ported Doom and Quake for Dreamcast: make the ported engine be able to read the same resources from the original game, and the port is distributed without resources, or with resources from a demo, and requires you to rip resources from your own "original" copy of the game to work.
Of course, in FF7's example, one would need to make a tool to convert the game assets to more Saturn friendly formats.
Show me a PSX game that "utterly canes" the realtime 3D effects found in Nights and Burning Rangers. The number of PSX games that get into that general league can probably be counted on your fingers - I can think of maybe 4 or 5 off the top of my head. Yes, there's a lot of crap 3D on Saturn, but that's more the fault of the development tools and the market (Saturn spent a lot of time being a secondary platform for anyone not doing arcade ports) than the hardware.
Case in point for the market thing, look at the Saturn port of Akumajou Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night) - nobody with a clue would argue that PSX's hardware is vastly superior for this type of game, but the Saturn port looks like a beta compared to the polished PSX original - gobs of slowdown (on a platform with substantially more CPU and sprite drawing power than PSX), loading screens interrupting gameplay (on a platform that has a CD buffer 16 times as large as PSX's), and ugly artifacts in effects. This game could certainly have been fantastic on Saturn, but it just wasn't judged as being worth the time/effort. If Konami made decisions like this, it's hard to imagine that smaller companies didn't think similarly, especially with 3D games.
nights is over rated. sure i love sonic team and the saturn too, but really, what is so good about nights? i'd like to see the saturn pull off something like metal gear solid or soul calibur.
i've never had the privilage to play burning rangers. could you post some more about the effects?
but i'll say it again, the 3d graphics on both systems are now really shitty anyway and it shouldnt matter which is better.
i've never had the privilage to play burning rangers. could you post some more about the effects?
but i'll say it again, the 3d graphics on both systems are now really shitty anyway and it shouldnt matter which is better.
Interesting, but I do recall you going off on a tangent about the Saturn's poor 3d capabilities vs PSX. So perhaps it mattered enough to you. Others have felt the need to correct you, that's all.
Anyway, I'm still disgruntled after playing SF III Scen 1. I want to play the others, but its a really big undertaking to do without any Japanese language skills - even with a translation in my hands. It makes it less enjoyable. I HAVE heard that the graphics in Scen 2 and 3 surpass the already-outstanding graphics in Scen 1, particularly that the char models were more detailed.
The saturn utterly kills the psx in the 2d department. Check out any of the capcom 2d arcade ports and SNK fighters. As for 3d. I haven't seen a psx game do high resolution 3d at 60 fps like the saturn does with VF2.
And soul calibur was never on the Saturn or Psx. And quite frankly, I find myself more interested in playing my old saturn games on saturn emulators than my psx games on psx emulators. The graphics of these older consoles may look like shit, but not so with current emus which can drastically enhance the graphics.
Don't get me wrong. I really like Virtua Fighter. Lau is my hero. I mean, I'm growing the long-ass hair just to be more like Lau. But Virtua Fighter 2 looks like crap and played worse. It would have been considerably better if jumping didn't make your guys "fly."
I honestly questioned whether I was playing Virtua Fighter or a really bad Dragon Ball Z game.
Metal Gear Solid's most impressive scenes have on the order of ~300 polygons. Saturn can pull that off with ease. Hell, Saturn could get away with FEWER polygons a lot of the times, because the game has tons of things like crates, which, while PSX needs ~12 triangles to render them from all sides, Saturn only needs 6 quads.
PS2, GCN, and Xbox do 60fps on a regular basis. There are no artefacts, just flicker. Saturn wasn't built to abuse super-high-res 3D that well, so it has a reasonably poor flicker filter (VF2 makes my eyes hurt - badly - on my RF side TV)... but the hardware is capable of running FULL NTSC resolution - 720x525 or something like that, which no other console that I can think of offhand supports (PS2 could, but it'd take too much of the GS's VRAM to be useful).
Aku. Dracula X got royally gypped by Konami.
SotN for the PSX uses the 3D engine to accelerate its 2D - PSX can't possibly do it using only its 2D engine.
Konami kept that system for the Saturn - as far as I know, everything in Aku DX is run on VDP1 - baaaaaad bad bad Konami - and it's done in "3D" mode, not regular 2D, which slows things down even more (SH-2's being forced to calculate projection into 2D space? WTF). Konami really did a horrifying job of porting that game.
Oh well, at least they did give Alucard a "Third hand" for items, and add two new areas.
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