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Forums - Nintendo - ‘Nintendo Harness Their Hardware Like Nobody Else’

lilbroex on 29 July 2012
curl-6 said:
lilbroex said:
curl-6 said:
Gnac said:
SaviorX said:
I disagree, after witnessing the Wii generation.

I am genuinely interested to read about examples of third parties harnessing the Wii's power better than Nintendo.


RARE harnessed the N64's power better than Nintendo.

Factor 5 harnessed the Gamecube's power better than Nintendo.

Shin'en harnessed the Wii's power better than Nintendo.

No. You are right about Rare and Factor 5 but Shin'en managed to harness its power to a level that was on par with some of Nintendo's games, not better.

I do believe that Shin'en was the best 3rd party dev for the system though.

I haven't played any Nintendo games on Wii that match the material effects Shin'en pulled off in Jett Rocket for surfaces like water, metal, and ice. Not to mention the game also did dynamic global lighting, soft shadowing, and a host of other effects while running at 60fps.

Then you have apparently never played Mario Galaxy 2.



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Gnac on 29 July 2012

What the hell are you people doing when you should be playing games?

OH DEM EFFECTS



WHERE IS MY KORORINPA 3

mysticwolf on 29 July 2012

Nintendo doesn't mess around on their systems. They get shit done.



 Been away for a bit, but sneaking back in.

Gaming on: PS4, PC, 3DS. Got a Switch! Mainly to play Smash

curl-6 on 29 July 2012
lilbroex said:
curl-6 said:
lilbroex said:
curl-6 said:
Gnac said:
SaviorX said:
I disagree, after witnessing the Wii generation.

I am genuinely interested to read about examples of third parties harnessing the Wii's power better than Nintendo.


RARE harnessed the N64's power better than Nintendo.

Factor 5 harnessed the Gamecube's power better than Nintendo.

Shin'en harnessed the Wii's power better than Nintendo.

No. You are right about Rare and Factor 5 but Shin'en managed to harness its power to a level that was on par with some of Nintendo's games, not better.

I do believe that Shin'en was the best 3rd party dev for the system though.

I haven't played any Nintendo games on Wii that match the material effects Shin'en pulled off in Jett Rocket for surfaces like water, metal, and ice. Not to mention the game also did dynamic global lighting, soft shadowing, and a host of other effects while running at 60fps.

Then you have apparently never played Mario Galaxy 2.

Galaxy 2 looks great, but its shaders aren't as advanced as Jett Rocket's. Fewer surfaces feature shader effects, and none of them (as far as I recall) go as far as things like the distortion of a  character's reflection across uneven metal/water surfaces, which features often in Jett Rocket.



lilbroex on 29 July 2012
curl-6 said:
lilbroex said:

Then you have apparently never played Mario Galaxy 2.

Galaxy 2 looks great, but its shaders aren't as advanced as Jett Rocket's. Fewer surfaces feature shader effects, and none of them (as far as I recall) go as far as things like the distortion of a  character's reflection across uneven metal/water surfaces, which features often in Jett Rocket.


You couldn't be farther off on the shaders not being advanced. Mario Galaxy 2 not only had a larger variety of shaders in use, but it also used normal mapping like on the ragon he battles in this video. Normal mapping is nonexistant in Jett Rocket. Mario Galaxy 2 had far more complex shadows and geometry as well more diverse, layered lighting effects without even getting into polygon count. There are plenty of games that use relfective surfaces.

 

Mario Galaxy didn't use reflective surfaces that often because it didn't need them. I can think of games that did it far better than Jett Rocket as well, like The Last Story. Its not as remarkable an effect as you seem to think. I remember seeing it in use on the Dreamcast and PS2 often. Normal mapping, on the other hand, is far more taxing on the hardware. It wasn't even possible on the DC and PS2 unlike dynmaic reflective surfaces.



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zarx on 29 July 2012

How did a dev talking about Nintendo using their controllers/input systems better than anyone else become a graphics debate? Nintendo fans are such graphics whores lol

Also, Vigil always sucking up to Nintendo.



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curl-6 on 29 July 2012
lilbroex said:
curl-6 said:
lilbroex said:

Then you have apparently never played Mario Galaxy 2.

Galaxy 2 looks great, but its shaders aren't as advanced as Jett Rocket's. Fewer surfaces feature shader effects, and none of them (as far as I recall) go as far as things like the distortion of a  character's reflection across uneven metal/water surfaces, which features often in Jett Rocket.


You couldn't be farther off on the shaders not being advanced. Mario Galaxy 2 not only had a larger variety of shaders in use, but it also used normal mapping like on the ragon he battles in this video. Normal mapping is nonexistant in Jett Rocket. Mario Galaxy 2 had far more complex shadows and geometry as well more diverse, layered lighting effects without even getting into polygon count. There are plenty of games that use relfective surfaces.

 

Mario Galaxy didn't use reflective surfaces that often because it didn't need them. I can think of games that did it far better than Jett Rocket as well, like The Last Story. Its not as remarkable an effect as you seem to think. I remember seeing it in use on the Dreamcast and PS2 often. Normal mapping, on the other hand, is far more taxing on the hardware. It wasn't even possible on the DC and PS2 unlike dynmaic reflective surfaces.

Jett Rocket used bumpmapping too, on things like the dimpled sand in the beach levels. As for shadows, Mario Galaxy 2's were pretty glitchy in the case of the dragon battle you pointed out. And there were plenty of places where SMG2 could've benefitted from refractive surfaces but didn't, like with ice and metal.

JR's water effects are better than Galaxy 2's also, and where most enemies in SMG2 had just a rim shader, JR's nearly always had specular and environment maps.



lilbroex on 29 July 2012
curl-6 said:

Jett Rocket used bumpmapping too, on things like the dimpled sand in the beach levels. As for shadows, Mario Galaxy 2's were pretty glitchy in the case of the dragon battle you pointed out. And there were plenty of places where SMG2 could've benefitted from refractive surfaces but didn't, like with ice and metal.

JR's water effects are better than Galaxy 2's also, and where most enemies in SMG2 had just a rim shader, JR's nearly always had specular and environment maps.


I didn't say bumpmapping. Normal Mapping and bump mapping are two different things. Normal mapping is far more taxing on hardware than bump mapping and far more detailed.

Shin'en detailed everything they did with Jett Rocket.

http://jettrocket.wordpress.com/

Nowhere does it say they used bump mapping  nor was is demonstrated anywhere. The only texture effect they used was EMBM which is a native effect to the Wii's TEV that doesn't require much resources on the GPU. Normal mapping is far more complex resource intensive.



famousringo on 29 July 2012

Dudes. The guy in the OP wasn't talking about shaders. Why are we talking about Factor 5 and Rare?

Better examples would be what Godfather did with the wiimote, Red Steel 2 with the WM+ or Shaun White Snowboarding with the balance board.



"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event."  — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

curl-6 on 29 July 2012
lilbroex said:
curl-6 said:

Jett Rocket used bumpmapping too, on things like the dimpled sand in the beach levels. As for shadows, Mario Galaxy 2's were pretty glitchy in the case of the dragon battle you pointed out. And there were plenty of places where SMG2 could've benefitted from refractive surfaces but didn't, like with ice and metal.

JR's water effects are better than Galaxy 2's also, and where most enemies in SMG2 had just a rim shader, JR's nearly always had specular and environment maps.


I didn't say bumpmapping. Normal Mapping and bump mapping are two different things. Normal mapping is far more taxing on hardware than bump mapping and far more detailed.

Shin'en detailed everything they did with Jett Rocket.

http://jettrocket.wordpress.com/

Nowhere does it say they used bump mapping  nor was is demonstrated anywhere. The only texture effect they used was EMBM which is a native effect to the Wii's TEV that doesn't require much resources on the GPU. Normal mapping is far more complex resource intensive.

How do you know that's even normal mapping on the dragon? It could have been done with embossing or EMBM. 

And just because Shin'en don't mention bump/normal mapping in that document, doesn't mean it's not the game. They don't really talk much about their material effects at all there, it's more about the lighting, framerate, and other such things.

 

@famousringo: I know, but I'm enjoying this discussion.