Raytraced Quake Wars : Intel Tech Demo
polycounter lvl 17
http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-37925-113.html
Cool.
"Intel demonstrated ET: Quake Wars running in basic HD (720p) resolution, which is, according to our knowledge, the first time the company was able to render the game using a standard video resolution, instead of 1024 x 1024 or 512 x 512 pixels. Seeing ETQW running in 14-29 frames per second in 1280x720 has brought up our hopes for Intel's CPU architecture, since we do not believe that CPUs would deliver a similar performance when rasterizing graphics. For the record, the demonstration ran on a 16-core (4 socket, 4 core) Tigerton system running at 2.93 GHz.
The game itself was vastly expanded when compared to original title. Intel’s Daniel Pohl showed how the engine now shoots three million rays in all directions, enabling collision detection based on rays alone..."
Cool."Intel demonstrated ET: Quake Wars running in basic HD (720p) resolution, which is, according to our knowledge, the first time the company was able to render the game using a standard video resolution, instead of 1024 x 1024 or 512 x 512 pixels. Seeing ETQW running in 14-29 frames per second in 1280x720 has brought up our hopes for Intel's CPU architecture, since we do not believe that CPUs would deliver a similar performance when rasterizing graphics. For the record, the demonstration ran on a 16-core (4 socket, 4 core) Tigerton system running at 2.93 GHz.
The game itself was vastly expanded when compared to original title. Intel’s Daniel Pohl showed how the engine now shoots three million rays in all directions, enabling collision detection based on rays alone..."
Replies
Amazing detailed reflections next to a blocky blobby mess is not going to make the blocky blob look great, no mater how detailed the reflection is.
Surprising lack of trees and terrain above the water line. I'm sure its really hard to ray trace the sky... oh well its good to see technology pushed I'm sure someone will use it properly sooner or later.
on 16 cores.....
I think this raytracing will have its place, just not in games...
Because the 'one day it will be feasible' argument ignores the point. Hardware restrictions will be a real factor for a long time to come. The power used for raytracing can better be used for a ton of other things, both graphically and gameplay-wise.
'Not in games' is the response, because the power needed for raytracing is wasted in games in general. It is like a game requiring a PhysX card (read the Carmack article for his take on that)- yes you can do some cool stuff with it, but on the larger-scale or even for a popular game, it is pointless and not realistic.
I assume you are aware the 3D space you are seeing in a game doesn't actually exist and there are not miniature soldiers and explosives in your monitor, yes? All of CG (art in general?) is representation, is 'faking'. So is raytracing, so is Final Gather, so is Global Illumination, radiosity, and everything mental ray and every else does. CG doesn't simulate natural phenomona- it approximates the simulation. How close of an approximation is needed? And what is the tradeoff? For games, and art, the answer is not to achieve physical perfection but to enforce the experience- and for the cost of raytracing you have to sacrafice many other things that would enchance the experience.
I was really impressed by this, seeing that this is possible in realtime. Sure it takes 16 cores and still runs like ass, but this is definitely a huge step in the right direction for next generation realtime computer graphics.
-caseyjones
Actually, to reiterate Carmack's views and what I said above, it is a step in the precisely wrong direction. It is difficult to say it is a step in the right direction, when it completely ignores wise use of hardware and technology. At the point real-time raytracing becomes practical on high-end consumer machines, all the work Intel is doing will have become useless, because the hardware will have advanced so far and tech will have changed so much (and NOT because of the current work Intel is doing). And if Intel wants to tailor their hardware for ray-tracing, it is a huge mistake, and people won't use it for that anyway, because it is a gigantic waste of resources.
Anyway, despite the graphics bend to this, it is hardly a discussion applicable to artists... if you want to learn more about it, this topic has been thoroughly discussed in numerous programmer forums and articles.
-caseyjones
Actually that's not raytracing, just ETQW's default "stencil shadows" (same as Doom 3 used).
I like that they have chosen ETQW as a testbed for this stuff, slightly flattering
The Quake3 and Quake4 examples shown are pretty cool too, everything reflecting everything else. Obviously this isn't how it would be used in a real game, but for demonstration purposes it's very effective.
And with regards to the look of the thing ... I actually preferred Island's default water shader (environment map), and the default Strogg forcefield effects. They were set up by artists and therefore look more visually pleasing.
The raytracing stuff is purely tech show-off, it's quite obvious that raytracing does not immediately equal awesome graphics, it's just to show that this is possible now and will probably become more commonplace in the future. Obviously when it's used in an actual game context with set-up by artists and designers, it will be used differently than in a pure tech demonstration, and will therefore look better
ouch ^_^