Naughty Dog\'s Jak and Daxter 10Million Poly\'s a sec?

Originally posted by Dr Yassam


Unfortunately, I rarely get the time to participate in these forums anymore

but ...

I\'m intrigued with this info Kangu! Can you give further details? Thanks.

(BTW, I don\'t recall saying it was impossible \'full stop\', just the level seen in XBox games like Malice and Kakuto-X).

Admittedly I don\'t recall exactly what you said in your post, so being the lazy ass that I am I gave a general recolection of your post. I agree that impossible is a very strong word and it is unlikely that you worded it exactly that way.

As for the additional info here really isn\'t much. Just some gameplay sceenshots that demonstrate the technique being used in SCEI\'s new game ICO. Frankly I don\'t really think it\'s that noticable in most games, hardly anyone noticed the fact that Onimusha had the characters projecting shadows onto themselves in cut scenes (although this is addmitedly less impressive because of all the spare processing power left over by using pre rendered backgrounds), and that was the first step, and now we have ICO and perhapps someday we might see shadows on the level of Kakuto.

Anyhoo... here are the screenshots from the game.



You can clearly see the main character (the dude with horns) casting a shadow on himself. You might also notice his shadow going through that of the female figure in the screen, this might be due to the fact that the game is still in development or the fact that the girl is supposedly some kind of ghost, or something to that extent.



I\'m not sure what is projecting a shadow on the character here, but it could potentially be some part of the environment, other than his own body.



This one just looks purrdy.

Originally posted by kangu-G^Ltt^s
((last img))
 

I can almost feel the sun beating on me in the room.  Is it warm in here?  He he he.

Originally posted by Futami
Don\'t criticize me for deflecting this troll\'s poor attempting at inciting the board. I\'m tired of anti-PS2 trolls coming to a forum dedicated to the adulation of the PS2 and infecting perfectly reasonable and civil chat with their venom. This guy\'s intentions weren\'t exactly subtle..Read the original message.

Futami,

I have seen you on all of the other boards at one time or another and you do exactly what that other poster did.  You are the troll on other boards.

So please give it a rest and stop acting like a jacka$$.

Originally posted by kangu-G^Ltt^s
You can clearly see the main character (the dude with horns) casting a shadow on himself. You might also notice his shadow going through that of the female figure in the screen, this might be due to the fact that the game is still in development or the fact that the girl is supposedly some kind of ghost, or something to that extent.

Thanks for the info.

Yes, I\'ve since checked out a few previews of this game (you can also download medium quality movies from IGN.com and Gamespot.com) from which those screenshots were taken.

Looking at the screenshot above, I believe that is her shadow on the grass. Her dress doesn\'t cast a shadow yet it seems to \'block\' the main character\'s shadow from the grass! Therefore such shadow \'bugs\' are probably due to the nature of the technique used to implement the feature, some of which may be resolved when the game is complete.

It\'s clearly software based (naturally ) and one which requires some trial and error for each character to get it \'just right\'. Therefore you probably will see \'missing\' shadows and shadow \'bugs\' within the game, but nothing which spoils the effect IMO.

Looking closely at the movie, it appears that a similar technique is used to cast shadows onto the characters as that used to cast shadows onto the environment and/or environment objects (like the tail and wings forming simple self-shadowing on the PS2\'s AC4 planes).

Hence for example, you may divide the main character into separate objects, head+body+arms+legs+loose clothing+stick. Each can to project a shadow onto the neighbouring object, but a folded arm wouldn\'t cast a shadow onto itself, but it would if the arm is split into two seperate objects (upper+lower arm).

Don\'t get me wrong, I\'m not trying to put the technique down in anyway, because the effect is VERY effective. However it does appear to be implemented at the object level, compared to the polygon level as seen on the XBox (although I\'ll need to see clearer screenshots to be completely sure).

It is a beautiful looking game though (yeh I admit, I\'m a sucker for graphics ), with some great effects in places, hence I look forward to seeing better screenshots and movies in future.

This one just looks purrdy.

Agreed!