Sunday, December 28, 2008

PC to PS3 (Little Big Planet, Orange Box, etc.)

Accepting console gaming
I have run Linux for several years now. It is a great operating system--yeah, I know it's really a kernel. I can always brag to my Windows and Mac friends of the ease of pulling down development libraries, packages, and files within seconds without having to scour the web.

I am a gamer, however, and have always wanted to play games without any hassle; to own a game and have everything just work. WINE has come a long way and has run World of Warcraft for me just fine, but with many other games I'm forced to tweak settings, use sub-par graphics, or worst-case scenario boot into Windows. To solve my woe, I decided to get a console. Hence, the PS3 sitting on my cabinet. I'm also looking forward to buying used games at discount, which is pretty much unavailable for PC gamers.

Configuring the PS3
Having not owned a console since the Sega Genesis--I had Resident Evil 4 and a Gamecube for a few months--I've fallen a little behind on the console world. The PS3 video snapped into my monitor via HDMI and I plugged the component audio cables into an old surround sound receiver. On starting the system, I passed through a brief configuration menu. One screen asked, "Do you want video and audio to go through HDMI?". Well, technically no, I just want HDMI for the video. So I answered no and my screen went black. I restarted the PS3 and answered yes to get video and setup audio afterwards, but I thought it was a funny question to ask if you're going to make a user's screen go black.

The PS3 menu is pretty sleek. It's a long horizontal bar of menus, where each focused menu will display vertical submenus of options. It works well and although I got used to it quickly, I don't see it as replacing a typical vertical menu.

Pleasant graphics
Both the PS3 and XBox 360 have had many consumer complaints in reference to the resolution many games and videos run at. For example, a game might render at 720p and be stretched to 1080 on the actual display. Although this is noticeable, all the games and videos that do it still look decent.

I had a chance to play a few demos and realized the incredible difference in graphical quality between video games. The aliasing in Mirror's Edge, for example, is horrible. The game looks well enough and has cool-colored art direction, but I can't help wonder if they couldn't at least do some post-process anti-aliasing. I've heard Microsoft actually has a stricter policy on anti-aliasing, but I can't reference that. I have been having fun with features and like having such quick access to all the different playable demos. It has been a lot of fun to download these demos and see if they're worthy of my wish list.

Orange Box
I enjoyed Half-Life 2 and always wanted to see how the first and second episodes turned out. The graphics are starting to show their age and the textures appear a bit blander than I'm used to compared to my PC. I'm still surprised how bad the loading times are in this game. Dying can take what feels like a minute to reload a level even if I died a few feet from the last load. What is the system paging in and out? Portal is a refreshing change. It satisfies that little first-person-shooter-puzzle-genre craving I never knew I had.

Although I haven't gotten into Team Fortress 2 to its full degree, I have seen it in action and have been very impressed with the graphics this game puts out. Some people were disappointed that Valve didn't attempt a realistic rendering system like everyone else in the industry. Their loss, I guess, because the game looks great. They have a great presentation, Illustrative Rendering in Team Fortress 2, that really showcases the art direction to make such a great looking game. Here's the high-quality video. If you like art direction or new shader designs, I highly recommend reading their slides and technical article.


Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction
I played parts of the full version at a friend's house and downloaded the demo on my home machine. This is one the best looking games I have ever seen. The animations are smooth, the palettes are nicely colored, and everything is supremely sharp. The draw distances are incredible. Insomniac does Playstation exclusives and has always done a great job pushing a system. It also handles really well and is just fun to whack things with a wrench. I have included a couple screenshots stolen from Insomniac's site. The game looks even better in motion.




Folklore
This game got polar reviews with reviewers conflicted between its poor gameplay and great art direction. The game features about three art styles sometimes jumping between 2D and 3D cutscenes and looks great. It's a unique genre, but the first "boss battle" had me constantly fighting with the camera just to keep the enemy on my screen. I stopped after completing that section fearing the rest of the game would include the same tedious and frustrating camera coordination.

Playstation Home
Playstation Home got terrible reviews days before I received my PS3. I wasn't excited to enter this online world, so I was ambivalent to these postings. I was a little curious though, and gave it a quick pass through. I can add to other statements that there is no reason why anyone should use Playstation Home.

After a boring session of creating a customizable character, I ran around the courtyard waiting for other characters' skins to load on my machine while an empty shell of a person modeled their movements. Moving into new buildings required additional downloads. While I realize this happens only once, it is still annoying for the first visit to this online world.

Entering the theater, I sat down in an available chair and waited for the video to play. Many people were standing up in front of the screen talking to each other, while others sitting in the audience with me were calling those in front to stop being duchebags and sit down. I realized then that Playstation Home is the 3D visualization of all the people on the internet I try to avoid put in the same room as me.

There is nothing redeeming about it and although it's in beta, I can see no reason for anyone to use it. I believe a product should enter beta to work out bugs and get customers excited, but I believe most people like me will get a glance at it be extremely reluctant to return. Home might one day be a really excellent product, but it's going to take some extreme makeovers to make it such.

Little Big Planet
I have heard complaints about this game lacking game and being more of a tech demo. I must say that this game is amazing. I have always enjoyed platformers, and this game is a great platformer by itself. It features a zany story, where players can pass through levels in coop (either offline or online) with up to three others. Most levels can be completed alone, but it's funner to play with a friend(s).

The graphics looks sharp and feature crisp textures, HDR effects like bloom, and decent camera work. Every once and a while the camera will zoom too far in or out, but it's tolerable most of the time. Smoke and fire effects aren't perfect, but they're pleasant to watch.

The gameplay implements a simple jump and grab mechanic so the controls are easy to master. Like most platformers, the characters are required to do a lot of jumping, but this game includes a simple grab mechanic where the player can grab certain objects if they have a "grab-able" material like sponge instead of stone. This is used for hanging, swinging, pulling boxes and levers, etc. There's also a depth or layer component where players can move closer or farther from the camera. This is usually done automatically such that a player jumping from a depth of say 3 will naturally move forward to land on a platform of depth 2. The mechanic isn't perfect and sometimes causes problems (like totally unfair deaths) but is forgivable since it generally works well.

The gameplay is somewhat forgiving. There are frequent save points littered throughout the game that allow players to restart there after dying--this only works a few times before the save point runs out of lives and the players must restart the level. Also, objects that can kill the player by squishing or burning him/her usually give the player the benefit of the doubt by squeezing him/her through the crack or lightly singeing the player.

The real innovation of Little Big Planet is the excellent use of physics in the game. Each object has its own material with corresponding properties like friction coefficient, mass, texture, etc. It is fun to see your avatar catapulted over a wall or balancing on a teeter-totter-style platform.

The best thing about LBP is the level design. The game has been in production for quite some and the developers have mastered the engine creating many beautiful and crazy levels. I have seen almost every non-combative platforming mechanic put into these levels as well as new components that add new challegnes using physics, requiring teamwork with cooperative players, and just some new creative puzzles. Some levels require two, three, or even four players to pass certain puzzles. These are usually optional off-the-route treks to obtain additional collectibles.

It's hard to find good cooperative games these days so it's gratifying to see one that has really done such a great job nailing so many features. I haven't any gotten to the level editor, but it's on the to-do list. I can't imagine a video-game playing PS3 owner not purchasing this game unless they adamantly hate platformers.



Conclusion
My first few days using a console have been very satisfying. That feeling of running a game I own and not having to fight the system to get it to play is most pleasant and I urge other Linux users to consider having a separate machine like the PS3 to handle most of the their gaming needs. It's also a great Bluray player.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Ray Tracing Basics

Dr. Steve Parker, who's academic team has done much to advance the field of ray tracing--specifically interactive ray tracing has allowed me host his lecture slides on my blog. Dr. Parker left the University of Utah earlier this year with Dr. Peter Shirley and several students to join nVidia in the hopes to produce high-quality, interactive ray tracing for consumers. Some have sourced Dr. Parker as writing the first "interactive" ray tracer, which he implemented years ago on some SGI computers.

These slides are taken from his CS 6620 - Introduction to Computer Graphics II course. It was basically all about writing fast and efficient ray tracers. The slides contain a lot of C++, but start with basic vector math. The slides have been compressed by me using Multivalent so they're quite a bit smaller than the originals.

The first lesson is a typical introduction to the course with pictures of ray-traced images and why ray tracing is useful. Those wishing to skip these details can probably jump into the second slide. They also include student project images including mine--the chess set. Most of these competition images lost a lot of quality for some reason--even uncompressed. You can see my image in an earlier post to see its original size and quality.

Also, if you use these slides, please keep the reference to Dr. Parker and his course.
Lesson 01 - Introduction to Ray Tracing
Lesson 02 - Geometry for Graphics
Lesson 03 - The Ray Tracing Algorithm
Lesson 04 - Ray Tracing Software
Lesson 05 - Ray Tracing Software
Lesson 06 - Ray-Object Intersections
Lesson 07 - Triangles and Materials
Lesson 08 - Materials
Lesson 09 - Materials II
Lesson 10 - Materials II
Lesson 11 - Materials
Lesson 12 - Heightfields
Lesson 13 - Sampling I
Lesson 14 - Sampling II
Lesson 15 - Color Theory
Lesson 16 - Texturing I
Lesson 17 - Texturing II
Lesson 18 - Displacement, Bump, and Volumes
Lesson 19 - Acceleration Structures
Lesson 20 - Acceleration Structures II
Lesson 21 - Acceleration Structures III
Lesson 22 - Acceleration Structures 4 Instances
Lesson 23 - Monte Carlo I
Lesson 24 - Monte Carlo II
Lesson 25 - Monte Carlo III

Language Shootout

I program quite a bit in my free time on various projects. I try to make sure I'm using the right tool for the job (quote the hammer and screw analogy here). Despite the range of programming tasks I've undertaken, I have only a handful of languages I use frequently: C\C++, Java, Python, and PHP. I like all these languages, but I try to make sure I choose the right one for the task. While sometimes I have to use a specific one when I absolutely need a 3rd party library, I have a few flexible ideas of when to use a given language.

C\C++ were the first two languages I learned, and they can do quite a bit. I usually choose this language when I absolutely need the fastest option available and I have the time to do the optimizations necessary to make it faster than Java--like SIMD operations.

I find Java to be a great prototyping language. By prototyping, I do not mean a prototype-based language, but a language that I can quickly develop a prototype for an idea I am playing around with. Java comes with a good GUI library, is faster than scripting languages, and has a good range of libraries to work with. I always hated doing something in C++ and realizing I needed to go hunt down a image library just to load a PNG file.

Despite what some people say, it is fast and has even beaten C\C++ on occasions--mostly where there are a lot of allocations and deallocations and the program isn't starting up and closing frequently. The Computer Language Benchmarks Game provides some performance analysis of several tests against many languages and Java is usually only ~10% slower. It is faster in some cases such as their binary-tree demo. I mentioned Chris Kulla's Sunflow ray tracer earlier, which is written in Java. He states his would be 20% faster if ported to C++, but I think his implementation is currently faster than most people's ray tracers for providing similar features.

I don't use Python much, but it's usually great for writing little scripts. I prefer this to Java as it provides faster programming for simple tasks. Although it is quite a bit slower than Java, it has a much faster init time so if I'm running the script frequently, it beats loading Java's large VM every time. Maybe that's a moot point.

PHP is only useful for writing web applications. Although this heavily limits its usefulness, nothing comes close to PHP's simplicity, ability to integrate with HTML, and huge list of useful functions. I always use PHP for anything related to dynamic web content.

I'm sure many will disagree with my criteria for languages. Some people insist ADA is the most useful language (like the creator of ADA). To each his own, but these languages have been good to me.

Reply to Comment #1
I received a comment on the "The Computer Language Benchmarks Game" link where I mentioned the test where Java beat C\C++ telling me to "note" that the Java program used a large heap, only beat C++ on one architecture, and that other C++ implementations were tested that were faster.

Language benchmarks will always lead to arguments about implementations, architectures, etc. I do not think Java is always faster than C++. I do not think Java is as fast as C++. But I do think they can be close. My point was Java beat C++ in one benchmark so to say "Java is slower" is a little unfair.

As I stated earlier, you can always make C++ faster than Java if you have the time and if speed is a concern. Chris Kulla's Sunflow ray tracer is fast--not fast for a Java ray tracer but fast for a ray tracer. I'm sure it could be much faster if he switched to C\C++, but he said it allowed faster development time at the cost of maybe 20% performance. To me, I'd rather take a performance hit like that if I had more time to make it a more feature-rich application.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Dreamworks Interview

After being on the job hunt a certain amount of time and seeing my carefully chosen list of possible employers start to dwindle, I started sending on tens of unsolicited resumes hoping someone would bite. One such company was Dreamworks Animation.

After putting together an impressive resume and cover that fit me as their ideal candidate, I sent it off. Seconds later, I received an automated response "The following addresses had permanent fatal errors". That sounded really bad. Not only were the errors fatal, but they were permanent and would remain so for the rest of time. I sent off another e-mail to the webmaster asking if my application was in fact received. That responded with another automated response claiming the mail server itself was down. I took it as a sign that working at this company was not meant to be. I received a phone call a few days later.

The conversation was typical for a first call--verified my information, my interests, what job they were trying to fill. Even though I applied for a programming position, they wanted to interview me for technical director. Since it was an interview, I accepted.

The Dreamworks interview process was actually quite simple for me. They scheduled a video conference and sent me down to a local FedEx Kinkos. In a large conference room filled only by myself and a TV/camera stand, I sat at the end of the table while I was grilled by Dreamworks employees.

The employees interviewed me in pairs or teams. The first team was "Team Oddball" as they called it, which asked trivia-like questions. Unlike my interviews at Intel, they actually remembered the answers to the trivia questions, which made the quiz a much more pleasant experience. One question, for example, was "If you have a three-gallon and a five-gallon bucket with unlimited water, how do you measure out four gallons?". The other questions ranged in difficulty. Most of them were pretty fun and allowed me to think and explain how I would do it.

The next pair asked more technical questions related to graphics, but it was a pretty simple interview. Subjects ranged from 2D intersections to level-of-detail. Every person that interviewed me was a technical director, which I really appreciated. I used the Q & A time to ask them about a typical day, what they liked, challenges, etc.

I was supposed to have an interview with the director of technical directors, Mark McGuire, who oversees all TDs on all movies, but he wasn't available that day. To make up for it, he called me the next day. He mostly wanted to make sure, as everyone had, that I had a very clear idea of what this position entailed. I always found that a difficult question to answer as I don't think I can ever understand a position unless it's a common profession or I spend a day doing it.

A few days later I received an actual offer from the company. The hiring manager explained compensation, the benefits like provided breakfast and lunch, etc. He worked hard to sell me on it. Even though I asked for more time to complete the hiring process with some other companies I was interviewing with at the time, I ended up accepting the offer. I start on the 5th of January. Although I didn't want to live in California, I'm excited to start at what appears to be a fun and dynamic company. By the way, if you haven't seen Kung Fu Panda, the humor alone sells it. The art direction is just more bang for your buck.