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DF:"Trails Evolution one of the most technologically advanced titles on the Xbox 360"

D

Dabanton

Member
Yay semi hyperbolic thread title. (But knowing how Gaf works it should bring in more people than a flat title would )

But it's an interesting Digital Foundry interview for fans of the game and tech heads who like to read the more in depth stuff on games like this.

Some fascinating info is shared.

In an age of cross-platform development, console exclusives are somewhat thin on the ground, and especially so on Xbox 360, where Microsoft has scaled back first-party studios, occasionally paring back on in-house engine development in favour of third-party middleware - so much so that the next Fable title is running on Unreal Engine.

A glorious exception to the trend is RedLynx's phenomenal Trials Evolution - a game designed from the ground up for the 360 hardware by some of the most respected developers in the business and available now on Xbox Live Arcade, and earning an impressive 9/10 Eurogamer review score.

In this special deep-dive Digital Foundry tech interview, we go head-to-head with RedLynx's Sebastian Aaltonen (aka sebbbi) to discuss the lessons learned from Trials HD, to get the thinking behind the ambitious Track Central editor, and to uncover the full story on the rendering improvements that power one of the most technologically advanced titles we've seen on the Xbox 360.

Virtual texturing, lighting, resolution, anti-aliasing, post-processing technology, GPGPU techniques - read on to discover why Trials Evolution isn't just a gameplay masterpiece, but also a technological showcase for cutting-edge Xbox 360 game development.
Click to expand...

Rest of the interview on their Site
 
R

Raide

Member
The texture pop-in at the start in a little annoying but not enough to mar the entire game. A pretty constant 60fps is nice to see for XBLA titles.
 
A

AEREC

Member
It's a technically impressive game for sure...specifically Gigatrack. But image quality (jaggies) and some image tearing hold it back for me.
 
Z

Zeppelin

Member
I remember reading pretty much the same thing about Trials HD. RedLynx are pushing some tech, for sure. To me it wouldn't matter if they didn't though, it's the brilliant gameplay you come for.
 
J

jett

D-Member
Leadbetter said:
Virtual texturing, lighting, resolution, anti-aliasing, post-processing technology, GPGPU techniques - read on to discover why Trials Evolution isn't just a gameplay masterpiece, but also a technological showcase for cutting-edge Xbox 360 game development.
Click to expand...

RedLynx said:
So we went slightly sub-HD (but at proper 16:9 this time) and let the high-quality Xbox 360 scaler hardware do the upscaling to the TV native resolution.
Click to expand...

Yeah ok Leadbetter
 
I

Infamous Chris

Banned
EuropeOG said:
Yeah but graphically it's nowhere near the best on the 360. Let's just focus on the fact that it's an awesome game.
Click to expand...

Its not graphically the best on 360; that isn't what the article is about. Some of the other stuff the game does is some of the best on consoles, which is amazing given the 360 is 7 years old.
 
Huevos de Oro

Huevos de Oro

Member
It's a great looking game for sure and I had no idea of the extent of the overhaul, from a tech standpoint. To be honest, I'm not even familiar with most of the terms talked about in there. One small complaint I have is that textures take a bit to load from time to time.
 
Portugeezer

Portugeezer

Member
Infamous Chris said:
Its not graphically the best on 360; that isn't what the article is about. Some of the other stuff the game does is some of the best on consoles, which is amazing given the 360 is 7 years old.
Click to expand...

Yes but in the end that will be looked over. I don't see people mentioning GTA IV for it's technical achievements.
 
W

Warm Machine

Member
They could have easily just knocked out a track pack to Trials HD and called it Trials Evolution. The amount of tech work they did was pretty well a complete rewrite of their graphics engine. I can't fault the visuals considering the 60fps and the obvious increase in draw distance and game content. The heightfield tech was a brillant (if not obvious) addition to the game and is pretty well the foundation to the entire game and editor.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
I sort of hate trials. Not because it's a bad game, it's amazing, but at a certain point I fall way off the difficulty curve. I went back to play the original to see if I should buy the new one, picked up where I left off and started on a steep ass ramp where I just can't jump the first box. Played 30 minutes trying to jump a box. Didn't jump the box. Didn't buy the sequel.
 
G

gdt

Member
It's an awesomely addictive game. And it teaches you very well.

But it's certainly not a graphical powerhouse. Jaggies, blurries, texture loading.....

It looks fine really, but nothing to yell about.
 
Huevos de Oro

Huevos de Oro

Member
catfish said:
I sort of hate trials. Not because it's a bad game, it's amazing, but at a certain point I fall way off the difficulty curve. I went back to play the original to see if I should buy the new one, picked up where I left off and started on a steep ass ramp where I just can't jump the first box. Played 30 minutes trying to jump a box. Didn't jump the box. Didn't buy the sequel.
Click to expand...
To be honest, the difficulty curve in evolution didn't feel as steep as it was in HD, at least for me. The Extreme tracks are like a bonus now as well, with the single player gig officially concluding when the difficult tier is beaten.
 
N

Neuromancer

Member
catfish said:
I sort of hate trials. Not because it's a bad game, it's amazing, but at a certain point I fall way off the difficulty curve. I went back to play the original to see if I should buy the new one, picked up where I left off and started on a steep ass ramp where I just can't jump the first box. Played 30 minutes trying to jump a box. Didn't jump the box. Didn't buy the sequel.
Click to expand...
This one is much more manageable. You should try it.
 
D

DUFFMCWALIN

Member
gdt said:
It's an awesomely addictive game. And it teaches you very well.

But it's certainly not a graphical powerhouse. Jaggies, blurries, texture loading.....

It looks fine really, but nothing to yell about.
Click to expand...

Did you read the article? Its not necessarily about how good the game looks. Its about how they revamped their engine so much that they were able to do all of this on a 7/8 year old piece of tech. Pretty damn impressive.
 
AgentP

AgentP

Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
jett said:
Yeah ok Leadbetter
Click to expand...

He is in love with the 360, so you have to filter his hyperbole a bit. Too bad the most impressive 360 game is a small sequel motocross XBLA game most people will never see. I wish they had spent all those years and all that talent on something original and retail.
 
R

RukusProvider

Banned
catfish said:
I sort of hate trials. Not because it's a bad game, it's amazing, but at a certain point I fall way off the difficulty curve. I went back to play the original to see if I should buy the new one, picked up where I left off and started on a steep ass ramp where I just can't jump the first box. Played 30 minutes trying to jump a box. Didn't jump the box. Didn't buy the sequel.
Click to expand...

Not playing a game for a while, coming back to an area where you were stuck in and hoping to clear it out of the blue is probably not the best idea for success....
 
O

OldJadedGamer

Banned
AgentP said:
He is in love with the 360, so you have to filter his hyperbole a bit. Too bad the most impressive 360 game is a small sequel motocross XBLA game most people will never see. I wish they had spent all those years and all that talent on something original and retail.
Click to expand...

A good game is a good game regardless of platform or if it is digital or retail. I know many on GAF like to ignore digital titles like they don't excist though.
 
C

CTE

Member
Some of you are taking this article too seriously. It's just saying what technical points about the game are quite awesome. Pointing out some things people may not realize since it is "just" an arcade game.
 
O

OrangeOak

Member
AgentP said:
He is in love with the 360, so you have to filter his hyperbole a bit. Too bad the most impressive 360 game is a small sequel motocross XBLA game most people will never see. I wish they had spent all those years and all that talent on something original and retail.
Click to expand...

Why do you think that he is in love with 360 ? Can you explain it ?
 
F

Feindflug

Member
DUFFMCWALIN said:
Did you read the article? Its not necessarily about how good the game looks. Its about how they revamped their engine so much that they were able to do all of this on a 7/8 year old piece of tech. Pretty damn impressive.
Click to expand...

Nah it can't be impressive, it's a "small sequel motocross XBLA game most people will never see" (lol) and it's running at 1280*690 instead of 720p.

So by neogaf's standards it's nothing worth talking about...of course it's also on 360, that doesn't help either.
 
M

mxgt

Banned
i wasn't impressed visually or technically. then again I play most games on pc.

it's a fucking awesome game, though.
 
I

Infamous Chris

Banned
AgentP said:
He is in love with the 360, so you have to filter his hyperbole a bit. Too bad the most impressive 360 game is a small sequel motocross XBLA game most people will never see. I wish they had spent all those years and all that talent on something original and retail.
Click to expand...

Are you ever going to stop shitting up 360 threads? How do you know he's in love with 360? A quick look at your post history clearly displays your agenda, and it's tiring. Take that shit off GAF.

And Trials isn't small by any means, it's actually the fastest selling arcade game on a console. It also isn't the most impressive 360 game, but then again you obviously haven't seen Witcher 2 360 in person, anyway.

Also, being retail or arcade doesn't make a difference; an amazing game is an amazing game.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
jett said:
Yeah ok Leadbetter
Click to expand...

He actually explains it in the interview

Sebastian Aaltonen: We did some research and the conclusion was that basically no native 1280x720p television sets were ever sold worldwide. 1366x768 was/is the most common HD-ready "720p" TV resolution, and 1080p sets were getting much more common during the last two and half years since the launch of Trials HD. We didn't see any reason to support native 1280x720 rendering anymore, as basically all TV sets would scale the image up, and nobody would see the game unscaled at perfect 1:1 pixel ratio. So we went slightly sub-HD (but at proper 16:9 this time) and let the high-quality Xbox 360 scaler hardware do the upscaling to the TV native resolution.
Click to expand...
 
D

dragonelite

Member
Wow Learned something the 360 is already capable of some sort of DirectCompute with the unified memory model and the GPU memexport.

And seems like microsoft lets devs use gpu microcode(code to the metal) i heard about some devs have been using it like 2 years back or so.
 
O

Omega

Banned
LOL @ people coming in here saying "teh gfx suck" or something similar.

That's not what this article is about.
 
S

see5harp

Member
AgentP said:
He is in love with the 360, so you have to filter his hyperbole a bit. Too bad the most impressive 360 game is a small sequel motocross XBLA game most people will never see. I wish they had spent all those years and all that talent on something original and retail.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is the most impressive 360 game that exists. Thank you for not mattering in this discussion at all.
 
G

gregor7777

Banned
Shame about the OP's choice of title. The article is an interesting read, and literally none of it is about Trials Evo being one of the most advanced titles on the 360.
 
E

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
Without saying its an awesome game with one of the (IMO the most) powerful in game editors all gen, but the texture pop in is so consistently prevalent. Your pretty much guaranteed it of you restart a track while halfway through.

But the game does a lot of intelligent things. You can customize draw distance on the fly, and so much more. Really, the features of the game make those issues insignificant and would only be irksome to graphic whores. It makes calling this technically impressive difficult because there's much more to it.
 
W

Winnie the Pimp

Member
damnit makes me want to buy a 360 even more now for ONE fucking game :(((( must.resist.

I can get everything else i want either on PSN or on Steam but this game looks really really awesome and i liked the first one, but i can't justify getting another 360 at this point+my gf would kill me lol :(
 
O

OldJadedGamer

Banned
Tguy said:
I think quite a few PSN/XBL push their systems to the limit a bit, but people don't realize it at all. Especially the 2D games.
Click to expand...

I guess people who ignore XBLA/PSN games simply don't have their machines hooked to the internet. There is no other logical reason for people who like good games to ignore them.
 
T

The Return of

Banned
OldJadedGamer said:
I guess people who ignore XBLA/PSN games simply don't have their machines hooked to the internet. There is no other logical reason for people who like good games to ignore them.
Click to expand...
What? lol was this a misquote? I certainly said nothing about them ignoring PSN/XBLA games.

I was saying that people don't realize that quite a few PSN/XBLA games actually push the power of consoles to the limit from time to time especially with the 2D games.
 
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