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[Apophis2036]

So the notion that the Wii U isn't more powerful than the 360 and PS3 proliferates thanks to this multiplatform titles... but all Nintendo had to do was provide a slightly more powerful CPU and all this could have been avoided. That's the worst part of all this. A higher clocked version of the exact same processor in a slightly bigger box with a bit more cooling, and Wii U versions of multiplatform games would have run on par with or better than the 360 and PS3.

That faster CPU would have needed more cooling though, which in turn would have needed a bigger case and that would have went completely against the WiiU's design philosophy however silly it might seem.

The funny thing is that Iwata wanted a small, quiet console that 'wouldn't annoy mum', yet on most games the media drive (it's blu ray and not dvd right ?), makes more noise than even my launch PS3 or 360 ever did ! .

One thing we can say for the Wii U, is that it's capable of deferred lighting at 60 fps and 720p, something I don't think we saw on the 360 or PS3. At least in the OPs first picture the lighting is responsible for a good chunk of all that colour. In the gif, not so much, but I am absolutely a fan of the Nintendoland lighting look that Nintendo seem to be favouring these days.

Interestingly, the Xbox One seems to struggle with deferred lighting at anything above 60 fps and 720p, although naturally the Xbox One has a lot more power it can leverage elsewhere in making it's games look substantially better... but it is interesting (to me) to not that the One's Achilles heel, is actually one of the few areas where we can point to the Wii U and say that it's absolutely more capable than the last gen power houses.

Aren't all WiiU games required to be V-Synced aswell ?, doesn't that almost half the framerate in most games ?.

 

[Rolf NB]

You can almost feel sorry for the loyal Nintendo fans. 7 years of conditioning themselves into not caring about modern technology. Graphics are good enough. Keeping development budgets sustainable. Art is more important anyway. Etc.

And now suddenly Nintendo wants them to be excited about graphics again.

How would your mind cope with that?

 

[Aces&Eights]

There is always going to be people following the trend. Who cares? Why even debate with them? I know what looks good and have a pretty decent understanding of what makes the consoles tic so I make my purchases off those insights. Screw the folks who think they know more. They are typically the 1080p or die crowd yet have a 720p TV in their living room, anyway.

 

[Funchameleon]

Dem colours popping.

Please don't post secret images of Nintendo's stunning deferred lighting technology applied to gaijin games for gaijin systems

 

[BriareosGAF]

As someone who does rendering work in the industry these are truly the most painful threads to read.

 

[shaowebb]

I love you OP. Most people are parrots who boil everything down to the resolution's number. You can still making a mess at 1080p , and you can still make amazing stuff below 1080p. The winner is who made the most of the tools they had in many instances. The losers are people who just parrot and believe in numbers over their own eyes. If it looks good it looks good people. Folks can do some amazing things with lighting, textures, and maps. Those things look better at 1080p but just because a game IS 1080p doesn't mean its art team did all those things they were supposed to do to utilize that resolution well by default. Good tools and dedicated work to maximize those tools is what matters and that kind of quality isn't done with math...its done by good artists.

 

[Funchameleon]

The winners are those that can look past hard numbers and just make up things to champion out of blind brand loyalty

 

[freezamite]

As someone who does rendering work in the industry these are truly the most painful threads to read.

Go ahead and educate me, I'm not a graphic expert by any means (I'm not even someone that cares a lot about graphics) but learning stuff is always good.

 

[Metfanant]

By virtue of them lighting the environment and sourcing some realtime shadows from it it tells me KZ is doing more brute force rendering work. It is so situational though. It always comes down to what the goals of the product are.

Basically,Nintendo has not unlocked some special magical power hidden in the WiiU. They wanted 60fps and built around that. Really, the higher the framerate usually the more simple the implementation of graphics are because you want to have the machine grab the art, process it efficiently and draw it. The more crazy hoops, hurdles, tricks, and reprocessing the worse things get. It is cool that MK8 looks as good as it does at 60 but it is also cool that Call of Duty, for example, can have MP battles on a 360 at 60.

agree 100% thanks for taking the time to answer my questions..

 

[Horp]

Go ahead and educate me, I'm not a graphic expert by any means (I'm not even someone that cares a lot about graphics) but learning stuff is always good.

I think someone from the rendering industry is less suited to educate you on this matter than say, a real time graphics engineer that writes shaders and uses different kinds of lighting models such as deferred rending in real time applications such as MK8, every day. For example me. But you haven't commented on my reply yet, so.

 

[Funchameleon]

I think someone from the rendering industry is less suited to educate you on this matter than say, a real time graphics engineer that writes shaders and uses different kinds of lighting models such as deferred rending in real time applications such as MK8, every day. For example me. But you haven't commented on my reply yet, so.

That's far and away most likely what he meant by doing "rendering work in the industry"

 

[Horp]

That's far and away most likely what he meant by doing "rendering work in the industry"

Where I'm from, "rendering work" always refers to offline rendering.
(I might be wrong though).

Edit:
To clarify; offline rendering refers to rendering images or video with a ray trace renderer such as VRay, in 3D Studio MAX or similar.

 

[Broritos]

Most people who talk about tech in terms of games don't have any real computational knowledge.

 

[Flo_Evans]

Not seeing how the WiiU being more powerful than the 360/PS3 is supposed to be shocking or impressive...

 

[BriareosGAF]

That's far and away most likely what he meant by doing "rendering work in the industry"

Correct, I'm an engineer and I do things like low-level microcode-oriented optimizations for console titles. As to educating, OP's usage of terms doesn't really make sense (for instance a constant confusion about 'lights' vs 'color', when surface albedo is orthogonal to lighting), so I'm not sure where I'd start. I've also found in the past that most people on the boards aren't actually interested in learning anything, they just enjoy the sound and fury.

 

[TheD]

Why do you keep confusing the number of lights in a scene with the color of a scene? Deferred rendering has nothing to do with the way that Nintendo saturates the color in their games, that's an absolute design choice that they purposely strive for and it's completely separate from the rendering type the game uses. These techniques that you claim are the reason for Nintendo colors have been used since the original Xbox. This is not a new technology.

The fact is, if Microsoft wanted a game that looked like MK8 on the 360 they could easily do so, colors and all. Bottom line, all this talk about deferred rendering being responsible for the games color is flat out wrong, you could have a million lights in a scene and it won't make colors pop the way that Nintendo is famous for doing. That's a symptom of Nintendo's artists doing what they do best, not the rendering technique.

Yep,
Games on the Wii like SMG had a similar colourful look and they did not use deferred rendering.
You are also right that deferred rendering is not new, it has been in use for some years (including on the last gen consoles).

This thread is crazy. So many specific terms being used so broadly and incorrectly by so many people. (Also a lot of other people in here are also very knowledgable, so I don't mean everyone).

OP, if you're starting a thread were you argue a point using very specific computer tech terms, you must first fully understand these terms, what they are used for, what kinds of way they affect the final output and what they don't affect.

If people that know more than you about the topic start correcting you, you should realize your error and correct your original post with an edit.

You are not talking about deferred rendering. You are talking about the look and feel of recent Nintendo games. What achieves this look is a number of factors, and I think the most important contributing factor to this look are the shaders themselves and post processing, not the lighting model.

Yeah, it is painful.

 

[autodidactdystopia]

In a perfect world where graphical superiority was judged fairly; each technology put up by whatever engine was in question, its difficulty and or complexity, its cost to performance in relation to other "similar" effects, and its perceived value to the overall look of the output, and above all scale, the scale of the effect in use is almost exponentially proportionate to the cost to hardware

Lighting being one of the core attributes to any AAA title has many methods by which it can be achieved

even under the same category IE Deferred Rendering, there are many ways to achieve lighting.

Something like this would be outside of the scope of all but a select few technophile type individuals who could be classified as many other things not always gamer first.

So in response to the op the tendency to just overlook and excuse as old or "art style" is more of a lack of understanding a lot of the core of what goes into creating these engines and an overbearing attachment to the hardware itself.

The best way I can put this is that while the wii (not the wii u) was primarily a 480 line device (Standard Definition) some of the software running on it could definitely be considered top of the line or "Great graphics" take Mario galaxy 2

Problem is that most people wouldn't realize that and see what the wii itself was capable of putting out and say oh well this could be done here or there and site whatever reasons they had to make it sound plausible.

If you take that same Mario galaxy engine and run it on say... a pc emulator with hardware behind it that is substantially more powerful you get a pure display of the engine technology, as opposed to looking at the limitations to the hardware it was created for.

On that emulator your resolution can now be full HD 1080p or higher and all of the technologies involved can fully shine.

my point I guess is that
yes lots of game engines on weaker hardware are overlooked due to a lack of general understanding in the industry. and super Mario galaxy on the wii, Is a great looking wii game but easily done on a 360 or ps3. but.. super Mario galaxy on a device that doesn't have limitations turns out to be one of the better looking games/engines both in art direction and in technical achievement of the whole generation.

Its all about perspective I guess.

 

[TheBaronOfNA]

Correct, I'm an engineer and I do things like low-level microcode-oriented optimizations for console titles. As to educating, OP's usage of terms doesn't really make sense (for instance a constant confusion about 'lights' vs 'color', when surface albedo is orthogonal to lighting), so I'm not sure where I'd start. I've also found in the past that most people on the boards aren't actually interested in learning anything, they just enjoy the sound and fury.

That sounds, sadly, accurate.

 

[Horp]

Correct, I'm an engineer and I do things like low-level microcode-oriented optimizations for console titles. As to educating, OP's usage of terms doesn't really make sense (for instance a constant confusion about 'lights' vs 'color', when surface albedo is orthogonal to lighting), so I'm not sure where I'd start. I've also found in the past that most people on the boards aren't actually interested in learning anything, they just enjoy the sound and fury.

Ok sorry I was wrong, I'm used to that term being used differently. You are most likely a very good person to ask about this matter, just like the OP did.

 

[BriareosGAF]

That sounds, sadly, accurate.

In his defense I'm sure I sound the same when I talk to my friends in finance about securitized debt, but I try to avoid dilettantism when I can.

 

[sp3000]

Literally everything in the OP post is wrong. Starting right with the completely hilarious idea of what deferred rendering is, and going on the not understanding the difference between light and color.

This is like some kind of forced group delusion held by Nintendo fans in an attempt to justify the marginal increase in power over last gen consoles.

You can almost feel sorry for the loyal Nintendo fans. 7 years of conditioning themselves into not caring about modern technology. Graphics are good enough. Keeping development budgets sustainable. Art is more important anyway. Etc.

And now suddenly Nintendo wants them to be excited about graphics again.

How would your mind cope with that?

You can see from this thread that the answer is not too well.

 

[plagiarize]

Aren't all WiiU games required to be V-Synced aswell ?, doesn't that almost half the framerate in most games ?.

No... it doesn't.

 

[freezamite]

Correct, I'm an engineer and I do things like low-level microcode-oriented optimizations for console titles. As to educating, OP's usage of terms doesn't really make sense (for instance a constant confusion about 'lights' vs 'color', when surface albedo is orthogonal to lighting), so I'm not sure where I'd start. I've also found in the past that most people on the boards aren't actually interested in learning anything, they just enjoy the sound and fury.

To be fair, the "confusion" of colours with lights is precisely what I was criticizing (maybe this needs a bit of context).
I may also be confusing terms because I'm not an expert by any means but that's not what I said but what I criticized here.

I think someone from the rendering industry is less suited to educate you on this matter than say, a real time graphics engineer that writes shaders and uses different kinds of lighting models such as deferred rending in real time applications such as MK8, every day. For example me. But you haven't commented on my reply yet, so.

That's because I didn't see it:

OP, if you're starting a thread were you argue a point using very specific computer tech terms, you must first fully understand these terms, what they are used for, what kinds of way they affect the final output and what they don't affect.

If people that know more than you about the topic start correcting you, you should realize your error and correct your original post with an edit.

You are not talking about deferred rendering. You are talking about the look and feel of recent Nintendo games. What achieves this look is a number of factors, and I think the most important contributing factor to this look are the shaders themselves and post processing, not the lighting model.

To wrap it up:
You say clearly, even in caps in your post:
"No, it's not "the colour", it's THE LIGHT SOURCES!"
And no. It's not. It's a nice way of shading that can be achived in forward rendering, with few light sources. Image Based Lighting combined with high resolution AO (baked or not) would be a good way to achieve this look.

As I explained on the post answering to the poster that put an example of GT6, I don't think I confused any terms. The shader materials are good, but the lighting is what impresses me the most.
I see soft shadowing coupled with a lot of real time lights and that made me think that the game was running on a deferred engine because otherwise I don't think it would be possible on the WiiU as it is, and as I say, I've never seen anything comparable on the Xbox 360 nor the PS3 (but since I don't own a PS3 I won't say it can't be done there at least at this same graphical level).

 

[sp3000]

I may also be confusing terms because I'm not an expert by any means

Well no kidding. Perhaps its a good idea to read a little bit on wikipedia or a few SIGGRAPH papers before spouting off fanboy garbage?

 

[TheBaronOfNA]

In his defense I'm sure I sound the same when I talk to my friends in finance about securitized debt, but I try to avoid dilettantism when I can.

Yep. I'm not a programmer or a engineer, so I tend to not participate in this kind of threads.

 

[freezamite]

Well no kidding. Perhaps its a good idea to read a little bit on wikipedia or a few SIGGRAPH papers before spouting off fanboy garbage?

In my defence, my knowledge about graphics is at least better than your reading comprehension, because most of what you've said about my posts is so wrong that I can't begin to describe it.

 

[Graphics Horse]

1 direct shadow caster for the sun for sure that only lights the characters.

Possibly a dozen point lights that come and go with low radius. It is hard to tell though from the videos. Even the under lights from the hover jets on the vehicles might be additive blended decal trickery. Certainly when vehicles collide you can see a point light flare up for 5-10 frames. Looks like there is a spot light on the front headlamp on certain vehicles. Depends on the falloff of that light too where lights far from the camera are effectively off and only engage near.

I don't think anyone can say besides Nintendo when it comes to the more subtle application.

One thing I noticed about the lights under the hover jets is the opponent's lights are optimised to a single circle instead of the one per wheel on the camera-tracked car.

And that's about all I can add to this mess of a thread.