4D graphics only on PS3

[Sterist]

via Playstation Universe

according to this article, "upscale PCs and playstation 3's" are the only systems capable of rendering 4D games at playable speeds

We all know what 3D graphics are - length, width & depth, but how many know what 4D graphics are? If you are one of the millions of people thinking 'What the %&$* are 4D graphics?', don't be alarmed. You've already seen them. Shocking isn't it? We all remember Kutaragi proclaiming not too long ago that PS3 would utilize 4D graphics, but what exactly did he mean?

4D, from a developer’s point of view, is is the progression of Life in time. It is where every tangible object in your game is living and constantly changing. As a result, change becomes an integral part of 4D graphics.

But how does all of this become possible? The answer is the dynamic rendering of procedural textures. Sounds complicated, but it's not. Let me explain; Procedural textures are textures which are linked to an algorithm. Instead of the texture being drawn pixel by pixel, you define the way these pixels have to be lit to produce the texture you want.

When the procedural texture is placed somewhere, you utilize an engine for actually generating these bitmap textures. They have life. They can change in a way you define them, especially through time. In a lot of the current games, the randomized textures method is used. Developers use one bitmap and just map it on randomly in the environment to create the design for that specific area. Every texture is not defined or unique. So, the method to create procedural textures allows for more control.

Allegorithmic is a utility set which allows an extensive realization of procedural textures. With it you define the procedures way using MaPZone, and then use ProFX to rasterize the images, producing the final result to be displayed by a renderer or a game engine.

for the full article and a couple video demonstrations of the sexy 4D graphics, click the link at the top of the post :thumbup:

Edit aug 31st:

for an "almost full explaination" of what 4D and 5D is, read this:

Spoiler!

hope this clears things up a lil. thank you wikipedia



1. -- gaming not possible in 1 dimension

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2. most first-gen games used 2D. NES and SNES were the last consoles that had a focus for 2D (sidescroller) games

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3. third dimension games are what you've been seeing if you started gaming around 1992~1995. 3D games did exsist before but few and far between

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4. xbox360 and PS3 are the only consoles that can handle 4D. only PS3 can handle at playable rate. textural 4D exceeds what a "vista upgraded" PC could handle in a high-res game. textural 4D, in terms of gaming, is when all the pixil-level graphics are 4 dimensional. the resolution in which it's projected from determins how many calculations the system will need to make. a modern vista pc does not have the means necesary to produce this at the pixil-level as a game environment.

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4th dimension is indeed time. time, on that analogy, is the darker/thinner shadow-looking cube. when looking at 4 dimensions you will find that the images have more "clarity" in their motion, as it's shadowing anything in motion. i don't want to go into too much detail on it as it's not THAT hard to picture. the lines that appear red in the analogy are 3D hinges and are not part of the visual texture. they cannot be (im making this word up, i think) unparallelize the parent from it's shadow texture or vice-versa. the harry/fuzzy-looking green lines are hinges but can only move on the 2D level in which the parent 3D model defines, as long as the perpendiculat lines attached to them on both sides of the "harry/fuzzy-looking" green lines are SIAs, or Supplimentary Interior Angles, or for short -- add up to 180°. all plains on the parent model cannot be unparallelized/unperpendicularized by the motion in it's vector field. vector fields are 2D. the corresponding lines and their angles on the shadow can move in the same manor. if you still dont understand what a SIA is, look up the name (which is in italics) on wikipedia or dictionary.com

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5. "only possible on a super-computor" on the notes from 2006 i found. this obviously will change as computors advance in time. cannot be done with the CPU of one or two units, atleast... for now

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in the fifth dimension:

1. the lines depicted above in the 4th dimension explaination which could move in 3D can now move in 4D -- or in otherwords, can now unparallelize the parent texture from it's shadow.

2. the lines depicted above in the 4th dimension explaination which could move in 2D can now move in 3D -- or in other words, can now unsupplimentarize the two horizontal plains but cannot unparallelize them.

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[Elven6]

Who concluded this bit of research?

[ICE]

to be honest with all the raw power the ps3 has i would be disappointed if it couldnt do stuff like that.

[Man]

This isnt truely 4 dimensional as having four dimensions would not be seen by the human eye, its merly upscaled 3D. I remember reading that the human brain canot accually veiw 4 dimensional objects as the 4th dimension is somthing that the human brain cannot comprehend. although this is mighty kickass

[ICE]

well the 4th dimension is time so its not a physical 4th dimension but an intangible one. its a neat idea though.

[quzar]

This is such BS. Anything that has any animation already takes the dimension of time into account, even if it is a simple cycle.

Yay for Sony's ability to say silly things to hype their systems. This sounds exactly like them saying that the PS2 could render Toy Story in real time.

[Sterist]

This is such BS. Anything that has any animation already takes the dimension of time into account, even if it is a simple cycle.

Yay for Sony's ability to say silly things to hype their systems. This sounds exactly like them saying that the PS2 could render Toy Story in real time.

there are more than 4 dimensions and they arent on a physic-defined order

the article has a whole paragraph on it. should prolly read the whole thing tho

[ICE]

someones biased..

[quzar]

there are more than 4 dimensions and they arent on a physic-defined order

the article has a whole paragraph on it. should prolly read the whole thing tho

I read the whole article, and besides the typos which really exemplify the point of people forgoing proofreading due to the availibility of spellcheckers, it really has nothing new. They are simply describing with lofty terms animated textures, the only thing that is different between this and what has existed for ages is the complexity of it.

Think of any shooter game where if you shoot a wall a bullet hole appears. What this is describing is a system where the bullet hole would actually be dependant on the surface you shoot, the angle of the bullet, etc. Each object (or at least many) would be "alive" so that through gameplay interactions with other objects change them realistically. Again, this isn't different from anything that already exists in anything but complexity.

Yes, I'm biased, but I also own a PlayStation and PlayStation 2, and you can't really say that the source "Playstation Universe" would be unbiased.

[Man]

well the 4th dimension is time so its not a physical 4th dimension but an intangible one. its a neat idea though.

hmmm im going to look it up later and try and remember what i meant to say, but ya this stuff is pretty cool.