HDRI - What’s the Fuss?

[archy121]

HDRI, or High Dynamic Range Imagery, is the buzz in CG circles of late. c|net has a small article discussing HDRI and how it applies to photography, though if you read between the lines you’ll see how it can be good for video games as well.

The problem with most imagery is that the dynamic range is too low. You can’t have a photo that shows off nice details in the shadows, as well as nice details in the bright areas. You can only do one or the other. HDRI helps to solve that.

The only problem for us future PS3 gamers is that the RSX in the PS3 won’t support both HDRI and anti-aliasing at the same time, or so I’ve heard. We’ll have to see once the games start coming out.

Is it true the PS3 will not be able to do HDR+AA let alone HDRI+AA ?
I though games like Heavenly Sword & Warhawk were already using this ?



Archy

[Nameless]

The PS3 can support both...

[version]

psp too :)

[yoshaw]

PS3 already does both thanks to visual and developer proof provided by Warhawk and Heavenly Sword titles.

psp too :)

lol

[acousticvan]

Heavenly Sword supports HDR and 4x AA.
Stop bashing

[cpiasminc]

Is it true the PS3 will not be able to do HDR+AA let alone HDRI+AA ?
You're a little confused. First of all, HDR and HDRI are not two different things. Second of all, What RSX cannot do is FP32 HDR framebuffer + MSAA. It can still use SSAA all the same, and the biggest reason for that, IIRC, is simply that nVidia hardware doesn't like 32-bit floats and instead prefers 16-bit halfs (which I personally despise, but I don't mind it for a framebuffer format).

Heavenly Sword is an example where people are cheating the hardware with their own HDR format. I'm not really sure what Warhawk is doing, but my first guess would be that they're using FP16, which is still fine for MSAA, I believe.

[archy121]

@cpiasminc Thanks for your clarification.

[cliffbo]

psp too :)

what are you hinting at here Version? PS3 games on the PSP? or are you just a PSP enthusiast?

[cpiasminc]

He's just talking about AA and HDR on the PSP. Though last time I checked, there were a lot of driver bugs on the PSP when it came to AA (which is why nobody ever really used it), it often screwed with texturing and made all things texture in screen space rather than UV space. But then, they've gone through a few updates since then.

And yes, PSP and PS2 and PS1 all supported 2:1 HDR, which doesn't really do much for the effect, but framebuffer accumulation and processing passes is something the PS2 and PSP are both pretty good for, which gives you a pretty good faking. Star Ocean 3 and Radiata Stories are kind of the canonical examples of HDR trickery on the PS2.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

Oh, so is Shadow of The Colossus, they talk about that on some 'making of' page someone posted a while back.

[VG Aficionado]

Oh, so is Shadow of The Colossus, they talk about that on some 'making of' page someone posted a while back.http://www.dyingduck.com/sotc/making_of_sotc.html :thumbl:

[VG Aficionado]

He's just talking about AA and HDR on the PSP. Though last time I checked, there were a lot of driver bugs on the PSP when it came to AA (which is why nobody ever really used it), it often screwed with texturing and made all things texture in screen space rather than UV space. But then, they've gone through a few updates since then.That's very interesting. Would it be possible for both PSP and PS3 to correct bugs in their CPU and GPU drivers (or add new ones ;)) through firmware updates as well as adding some software features in order to increase their performance or enable new effects and whatnot? I mean this beyond unlocking PSP's CPU clock, of course.

[cpiasminc]

That's very interesting. Would it be possible for both PSP and PS3 to correct bugs in their CPU and GPU drivers (or add new ones ) through firmware updates as well as adding some software features in order to increase their performance or enable new effects and whatnot? I mean this beyond unlocking PSP's CPU clock, of course.
Absolutely. Of course, that will probably hardly affect old games at all, since they're going to be built around the constraints of the older firmwares and drivers. Also, things like the API/driver layer often get statically linked (meaning the driver is part of the game binary) with console games because it ensures that the game's profiles don't change if you update anything on your own console -- that's a luxury not afforded to PC developers.

[VG Aficionado]

Absolutely. Of course, that will probably hardly affect old games at all, since they're going to be built around the constraints of the older firmwares and drivers. Also, things like the API/driver layer often get statically linked (meaning the driver is part of the game binary) with console games because it ensures that the game's profiles don't change if you update anything on your own console -- that's a luxury not afforded to PC developers.Great to know, thank you :)